Donald Fehr: A legacy derailed

At one point, Donald Fehr was the most powerful man in Major League Baseball. He might have been the most powerful leader of any labor movement in the United States. But when Fehr announced Monday that he would retire from his post, the legacy he had carved out early in his career had been siginificantly tarnished.

As head of the Major League Baseball Players Association, Fehr brought great riches to the players while keeping team owners and the commissioner at arm's length. Under Fehr, there was unprecedented growth, not only in contract money but in the popularity of the sport. In the late 1990s, baseball was actually making a run to overtake the National Football League as this country's most popular sport.

But Fehr ran the union with little regard to the game. That's why the average salary went from about $300,000 to $3 million in his 25 years of leadership. His negotiation tactics were born from a bullheadedness that was almost totally backed by the players. Not even a work stoppage that forced the postponement of the 1994 World Series seemed to slow him or his influence.

But performance-enhancing drugs did. When the use of steroids and other PED was finally revealed in the early part of this decade, Fehr suddenly seemed more like a co-conspirator of a gang of cheaters than the leader of a great union.

The figure who testified before Congress on steroid use did not look like the crusading leader that bouyed baseball and its players. One by one, the players who helped Fehr elevate interest in the sport, now looked pathetic as they also were called to testify. These immortals who were once sure-shot Hall of Famers now sparked debate about whether they should even be considered.

Fehr's influence in the game can't be underestimated. He was a moving force in propelling baseball to where it is today. But it's your view of how it got there that will determine how this man is judged.