Chris Shays Sighting!

This one made me proud. *Sniff* a perfect end to the semester.

Christopher Shays describes himself as a casual baseball fan. He's the kind of guy who tracks the Red Sox and Yankees hardball rivalry from a distance but would never be caught dissecting box scores in the morning's Washington Post. Actually, after coming face-to-face with some of the leading characters -- namely a handful of players, commissioner Bud Selig and union leader Don Fehr -- during Congressional steroid hearings in 2005, the Connecticut lawmaker has a somewhat more jaded perspective on the game.

Rep. Shays smiles thinking back on the likes of Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro parading before the House Committee on Government Reform -- the sense of entitlement they carried on their broad shoulders, the way they dismissed allegations of widespread steroid use in the game, even though committee members suspected otherwise.

"Let me just say that they were deceitful,'' Shays, a Republican, said of the collective baseball group. "They weren't cooperative. And they were arrogant. And they were like, 'How dare you question us,' kind of attitude. And I want you to know I don't take offense at that. There are certain things as a member of Congress I don't like. But personally, I was just stunned by it because I haven't see worse behavior in anyone in my 20 years in public life in Congress.''

And so, Shays believes baseball has only itself to blame for the PR mess it's in today.

"The union is extraordinarily powerful and the commissioner doesn't run it,'' he said. "It is run by some of the major teams, as far as I can tell. You need someone who really has the [will] to do some really tough things . . . It has just been a long tradition of tolerance. The irony sometimes is people cover up in order not to give baseball a bad name, but in the process everything just ferments. It gets worse. And in the end the name suffers even more. So it is a commissioner who is not willing to take decisive action and it is a players' union that feels very privileged.''