Cost-loss ratio of violence

In the end, and even when the punishment handed down because of another time when a wife or girlfriend called the police because of the behavior of a professional athlete seems reasoned and fair, it still always comes down to this: Guys being asked to make determinations about the bad behavior of other guys towards women.

And so you know? I believe Commissioner Rob Manfred got it right with Jeurys Familia, giving him 15 games instead of the 30 he gave Aroldis Chapman a year ago because of an incident involving the mother of Chapman’s child. There was a gun involved with Chapman, even if all he did was, according to police reports, fire off shots in his garage. Doesn’t matter. He could have taken aim at the moon. A gun being anywhere near a domestic argument presents both the opportunity and the danger of a far greater tragedy.

But it is worth pointing out, and even as all professional sports try to become more and more vigilant about domestic violence and abuse in the modern world, that in two consecutive seasons, New York’s baseball teams have begun the seasons without their closers.

And the Mets’ starting third baseman, Jose Reyes, was also suspended at the beginning of last season, when he was still with the Rockies, because he had been arrested by police in Maui the previous October – the same weekend, as it turns out, that Chapman’s girlfriend ended up hiding in fear outside his house – over an incident involving his wife.

The case was finally dropped. Its deputy prosecuting attorney, Kerry Glen, said this last spring after Reyes’ wife refused to talk to prosecutors and refused to return to Maui:

“The complaining witness, Mr. Reyes’ wife, is what we call an uncooperative witness. At this point, I have no other avenue for prosecution.”

Reyes got 51 games from Manfred, anyway. His case is different from Chapman’s and, in the view of Manfred, a lawyer, Chapman’s is different from Familia’s. They are all different, and yet all the same, because always things got bad enough on the nights in question there was a call made to the police. Then it was left for another male sports commissioner to make a determination about something that happened between one of his players and the threat he presented to the woman in his life.

This isn’t steroids, or performance enhancing drugs, where if you test positive, you’re automatically gone; or when there was so much evidence against you, as there was with the world’s most expensive mentor and manabout-town, Alex Rodriguez, that you end up losing three times what Reyes got from Manfred, which means a whole season. With the exception of Ray Rice or Joe Mixon, where there was video, most of these cases involve two people, sometimes two versions of things, one bad moment. Sometimes a terrible moment that changes lives forever.

Sometimes the punishment is a life sentence, the way it is with Ray Rice. It was different with Mixon, the Oklahoma running back, who lost a season at Oklahoma but no eligibility, and certainly will find work in the National Football League. Chapman, who can still throw a fastball 100 mph, not only still has a job in baseball, he signed one of the biggest and longest contracts any closer has ever gotten. Familia will get his job back with the Mets as soon as he is eligible because the Mets have no chance to win the National League East without him. Because of David Wright’s fragile physical state, Reyes is practically indispensable. The Mets have to be thrilled that Familia only got 15 games, because they had to be worried that Familia was going to get the same sanction from Rob Manfred that Chapman got.

Through it all, Manfred was the one who had to decide what he thought justice was in Familia’s case, the same as he had with Reyes and Chapman before him. He is a smart guy, ruling on dumb guy behavior that, in the cases of Reyes and Familia, involved domestic violence incidents. These decisions are an important and complicated part of the job description for any modern commissioner, because these incidents keep occurring. Remember that everything that has happened in baseball over the past couple of years has happened in a Ray Rice world. Here is part of Manfred’s statement about Jeurys Familia:

“The evidence reviewed by my office does not support a determination that Mr. Familia physically assaulted his wife, or threatened her or others with physical force or harm, on October 31, 2016. Nevertheless, I have concluded that Mr. Familia’s overall conduct that night was inappropriate, violated the Policy, and warrants discipline.”

He couldn’t give Familia a pass. But also decided he couldn’t give him what Chapman had gotten. This is what the prosecutor in the case involving Familia and his wife Bianca Rivas, Arthur Balsamo, said after it was dismissed:

“(Rivas) is steadfast in her wish that the matter be dismissed and that the defendant not be prosecuted for simple assault.”

So Familia’s wife ultimately made the same decision, about the law and about her husband, that Jose Reyes’ wife had made. Both women did this for their own, deeply personal reasons, and kept their husbands clear of any sanctions from the law. Just not from their own sports, where commissioners have sweeping powers as judges, and juries, and prosecutors. They are not looking to act as marriage counselors, or form more perfect unions between ballplayers and their wives. They’re trying to do right by their business, and their brand, and exercise common, and their own brand of justice, at the same time.

So the two New York closers have their jobs. So does the Mets’ third baseman. Ray Rice doesn’t have one. The former Giants’ kicker, Josh Brown, released by the team last season because of behavior against his exwife, may never get another kicking job in the NFL, even though he has steadfastly maintained he never struck Molly Brown. Joe Mixon, though? He may turn out to be a star.

Sometimes in a guys’ world, it’s not how you acted against a woman, it’s how much the guys in charge of hiring think you still have left in the tank. Whether they think you can still pack a punch or not. So

to speak.