“Wait until the next collective bargaining talks,” we always seem to hear when issues arise in the sports world.
But following the incident involving former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association wasted little time to discuss a change in the policies that deal with domestic violence.
According to Liz Mullen of the Sports Business Journal, though labor negotiations are not set to begin until 2016, MLB Chief Legal Officer Dan Halem said Rice’s punch in an elevator sparked the process.
“We were talking about this generally, but it was really the Ray Rice incident that brought this issue to the forefront for us" –Dan Halem
— Liz Mullen (@liz_mu11en) September 6, 2015
Kudos to Major League Baseball and its players association for agreeing to the policy, because domestic violence is a serious problem.
Now, domestic violence is not limited to the sports world. It happens every day, all over the world. However, whatever message professional leagues can send in condemning the act would be beneficial, especially after the NFL’s debacle in the handling of Rice’s case.
Domestic violence should never, ever happen, but the reality is that it does. We can only hope the new policy will affect players in a positive way, because any potential incident saved is a victory for someone we might otherwise be forced to call a victim.