Congress to play hard ball?

Spring training for Congressional grandstanding is just about ready for the first exhibitions of the 2005 season, and officials are warning that baseball players who decline the "invitations" to testify about steroid use will be compelled by subpoena to play ball.

The The New York Times is reporting:

Commissioner Bud Selig, the Yankees' Jason Giambi and several other baseball players and executives are deciding whether to accept an invitation to testify at a Congressional hearing on steroids this month, but the decision may eventually be made for them.

Any of the four executives and seven former or current players who decline to attend will be subpoenaed, said a person familiar with the committee's plans.

"This is no bluff," said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

We are also told that the congressmen involved do not grandstand. How reassuring that this hearing is not designed to convince voters that only congressional action can save the national pasttime. Certainly it wouldn't have anything to do with Jose Canseco's excreble new book that makes wild claims of just about everyone in baseball. (You were right, Sparky Lyle. Canseco has the body of a Greek goddess, and now we know how it got that way.)

Check out the congressional guest list:

In addition to (Jason) Giambi, (Mark) McGwire and Canseco, all former teammates with the Oakland Athletics, the current players who have been invited are Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro of the Baltimore Orioles, Frank Thomas of the Chicago White Sox and Curt Schilling of the Boston Red Sox.

According to The A.P., Palmeiro said he would decline the invitation and Sosa said he needed to talk to his agent.

Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants and the Yankees' Gary Sheffield, two players who testified before the grand jury in the Balco case, have not been invited, but Karen Lightfoot, a spokeswoman for (Cong. Henry) Waxman, said more invitations could be issued.

Now hear this: Any Congressional hearing on steroid use in baseball will be a mockery if Barry Bonds is not required to testify.

With the advent of a new, tougher Major League Baseball program on steroid testing, and since Bonds is already the subject of federal grand jury scrutiny, perhaps it would be best if Congress just kept the hell out of the way for the time being. So typical of Congress to hold hearings on open barn doors only after the horse has been caught and returned, and the door closed.