Baseball needs to show class

By Josh Griffin

Baseball lost a great player and one of its best men with the death of St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Darryl Kile this past June.

During their run through the regular season and postseason, all members of the Cardinals wore a tribute to D.K. on their hats during games. When the San Francisco Giants eliminated the Cardinals, inactive Giants pitcher Jason Christiansen hoped to carry on the tradition. Baseball's disciplinary gurus told him, however, that he would not be allowed to sit in the dugout if he paid tribute to Kile with markings on his hat.

Why is the league so adamant about such obscure rulings that limit a player from paying tribute to another player who died in the middle of the season? The death of Kile is one of the most tragic storylines in baseball history, and officials like Sandy Alderson and Bob Watson are about to prove yet again that a heart of stone governs Major League Baseball.

This issue becomes even more alarming that even after the immense tragedy of Sept. 11th, the league has forgotten the class it levied under those circumstances. The past 13 months have been some of the most difficult in American history - with the World Trade Center attacks, the Anthrax scare and the recent terror associated with the sniper in the Washington, D.C., area.

As far as tragedies go, Major League Baseball must do a better job of allowing its players and officials to honor those departed. Allowing Christiansen to chalk a "D.K." on his cap will hurt nobody.

Maybe if baseball allows such changes, the stuffy officials and owners won't look so cold-hearted in the public eye, and maybe stadiums will even sell out again.