A 30-game suspension for Yankees P Aroldis Chapman "doesn't look particularly impressive next to baseball's drug suspensions, but there are a few reasons this imperfect suspension ultimately works," according to Jane McManus of ESPNW. MLB communicated with the MLBPA to "secure agreement on the number beforehand." It is "important to take a stand, but it's also important to make it stick -- even if that means cooperating with people who are usually negotiating adversaries." Another important difference here "is the way the case has been spoken about" by MLB and the MLBPA. McManus: "There is no mitigating, no obscuring the message: Baseball isn't going to ignore this anymore" (ESPNW.com, 3/2). In S.F., Ann Killion wrote MLB might "not have gotten its domestic-violence policy absolutely right -- but the league still got it partly right, and these days, that counts as a positive step." That "puts baseball in sharp contrast with the NFL, which has been notably embarrassing when it comes to punishment for domestic violence" (SFCHRONICLE.com, 3/2). ESPN N.Y.'s Wallace Matthews noted Chapman's 30-game ban amounts to about 19% of the 162-game season, or the "equivalent of about three games out of a 16-game NFL season." That means with one ruling, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred "establishes himself as much tougher on domestic violence than his NFL counterpart, Roger Goodell, who originally gave Ray Rice a two-game suspension" (ESPNNY.com, 3/2). In N.Y., Tyler Kepner writes a longer suspension for Chapman "might have seemed excessive" for a case in which "no arrest was made." A shorter ban "would have minimized a problem that had long been tacitly condoned by professional teams and leagues" (N.Y. TIMES, 3/3).
