Weiner: Steroids shouldn’t keep players from Hall

WASHINGTON – The head of the Major League baseball players’ union thinks steroid use shouldn’t keep a player out of the Hall of Fame.

Michael Weiner told the National Press Club on Wednesday he thinks the Hall of Fame “is for the best baseball players that have ever played.”

Weiner thinks Pete Rose should be in the Hall despite Rose’s history of gambling, and he expects that there will be team executives inducted in the Hall who previously engaged in what Weiner called the “massive conspiracy called collusion” against the players.

He also likened negotiations between the owners of baseball teams and the athletes they employ to national economic problems.

Weiner made a comparison between state workers arguing for union rights and the negotiation process of baseball players.

Recent attempts to limit those rights, such as in Wisconsin, leaves “one side of the contest with no way to compete,” he said.

“Labor relations should be a fight, but not a one-sided fight,” said Weiner of what he sees as a working environment “[rigged] against working men and women.”

“Our current economic difficulties were not caused by America’s working men and women,” he said. “It’s just not true that men and women making less than $40,000 a year caused the current fiscal crisis.”

When asked if he would ever offer advice to a private sector union, Weiner said negotiating workers’ rights in the private sector is not exactly the same because “the nature of bargaining there is very different.”

Weiner also added labor relations in baseball are not limited to disagreements. Recent changes to league regulations, like the addition of another wild card team for the playoffs, was possible because “both sides recognized a good idea.”