Tonight in Anaheim, Cy Young candidate Bartolo Colon will face the Detroit Tigers with the opportunity to not only win 20 games for the first time in his career, but to unravel 31 years of one of baseball’s greatest conspiracies.
As my previously published investigation uncovered, the California Angels, Cleveland Indians, San Diego Padres and 11 other franchises have engaged in a complicated, under-the-table revenue sharing agreement that eventually lead to the current collective bargaining agreement and 1994 strike. To show solidarity with one another and pay tribute to late Angels owner Gene Autry, the 14 teams pledged that they would not allow one of their pitchers to win 20 games.
What would it mean, then, should Colon actually win his 20th game? Would Autry’s War, as it has been named within baseball, be over? One source within the commissioner’s office says that the conspiracy has been rendered impotent since the strike season, and that Colon’s flirtation with contemporary team history is evidence that the Angels have finally stressed success over an allegiance to Autry’s now-irrelevant edicts.
Others within baseball, however, disagree. “The Colon story is a trade-off with Selig, plain and simple,” says one American League front office executive. “There are two levels to this: one, those steroid rumors back in July were true, but some teams worked out a deal with the league to keep those suspensions private. In exchange for keeping those positive tests under wraps, teams involved in the whole Autry fiasco had to sever their remaining ties with one another — even the ceremonial ones.
“Secondly, consider the timing of the new broadcast deal that baseball reached, including that “˜Monday Night Baseball’ horseshit,” he continues. “Would you believe that Selig threatened to keep the Autry teams out of the televised schedule? The man holds grudges like you wouldn’t believe. He still hasn’t forgiven them for not standing with him back in ’94.”
Several other sources confirmed the AL executive’s take on the situation. “By threatening to withhold some of the collective bargaining funds — ironic, considering that it was Selig’s idea to bring the Autry revenue sharing to the league at large — Selig played the hardest ball that he could. And when the teams finally relented, he demanded insult upon injury: there would be a 20 game winner, and it would have to be an Angel.”
Some observers find the situation overly familiar. Eight Men Out author Eliot Asinof notes similarities to baseball’s biggest scandal — the throwing of the 1919 World Series. “The parallels between Selig demanding that the Angels field a 20 game winner and Arnold Rothstein ordering Eddie Cicotte to bean the first Reds batter to signify that the fix was on are hard to ignore,” he says. “[Original commissioner Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis] must be rolling over in his grave.”
And so tonight, when Colon takes the mound against a moribund offense, it won’t just be a division title or potential Cy Young Award on the line — it will close the book on one of baseball’s ugliest chapters.
Seymour Hersh, a regular contributor to The New Yorker, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of several best-selling books.