This conference of prominent psychologists has been brought together to help Major League Baseball deal with its temperamental star, Albert Belle. We all have doctorate degrees in psychology, and we are all professors at prominent universities. We are certain, therefore, to come up with a correct conclusion.
Because we are scientists, we will use the scientific method to move toward our conclusion. Therefore, as we help baseball deal with Albert Belle, we also advance science.
The Question. Can baseball do anything to make Albert Belle stop having temper tantrums?
Hypothesis. At first there was much debate, and we could only agree that Albert Belle's temper tantrums are indeed a scary thing. We all shared the view that victims of his fury, like Milwaukee second baseman Fernando Vina, are indeed worthy of pity.
Dr. Huxtable finally put forward a sensible hypothesis. He said that the league is probably already doing everything it can to appease Belle's temper by punishing him with fines and suspensions. But most of all, he put forward the hypothesis that the league did the right thing in ordering Belle to undergo psychological counseling that is what will most likely work.
Data. One of our top psychologists Dr. Quinn, medicine woman plotted a graph that shows the frequency and severity of Belle's temper tantrums. Unfortunately, that graph is not available to be shown, but Dr. Jack Ramsay summed it up:
"Before he started psychological counseling, Belle had many temper tantrums. Since he's started psychological counseling, he still has a large amount of temper tantrums. After all, the league just began to administer counseling in May, and since then, he's been a part of two incidents. He's not slowing down Dan, if anything, he's speeding up."
Dan Patrick, who attended the meeting to take care of Dr. Ramsay, agreed.
Analysis. Our data to this point would lead to the conclusion that psychological counseling will not effectively help Albert Belle. It has been used in the past, and it has failed. But we all agree that this does not completely dismiss the hypothesis that counseling could work.
For example, Dr. Dre reminded us, "There are so many things that could have gone wrong with this particular counseling, but could work the next time. Maybe the psychologist used the wrong kind of counseling. But that doesn't mean we should abandon counseling all together."
At that point there were many strong voices of agreement, and we all began to talk amongst ourselves about how effective counseling might still be. We were surprised to be interrupted by Dr. Howser, who gave a stirring speech, which I will repeat verbatim here:
"Ladies and gentlemen, don't you see that this solution we're grasping at is wrong? This is as unethical as putting him in a laboratory and doing an experiment on him with electric shocks!"
That statement was followed by a general murmur, with people whispering, "Why?" and "How?" and "Electric shocks? We should discuss that." Dr. Howser continued:
"Albert Belle has not signed up for psychological counseling. He wants no part of his personality changed. He likes having temper tantrums. They help him intimidate pitchers by giving him a 'bad boy' image. Who are we to say that he should change?" As Dr. Howser spoke, the murmuring increased.
"But he hit that guy in the face!" cried Dr. Jackson. "That's assault! He hurt that guy! Besides, are we really going to listen to Dr. Howser? After all, Zit Face here has got better things to worry about, like his junior prom." The laughter that followed was interrupted by Dr. Howser's response:
"What Belle did that was wrong was to actually hit that guy in the face. He should be dealt with according to the things he has done wrong. Another thing he did wrong was nailing that photographer with a baseball. But, what should not be punishable is his personality.
"See, we are getting into a philosophical argument: Is it fair to regulate something that is not a problem by itself, but causes a problem down the road? I don't think it is fair. If we try to eliminate all causes of problems, then we will try to eliminate the causes of those causes, and then everything will go to hell.
"An example would be if we illegalized violent movies because they cause people to be more violent in real life. That could be taken to an extreme by illegalizing causes of violent movies, which might be creative people, overly-physical people and greedy movie people (who want their movies to make money). All of those people could get psychological counseling. Maybe eventually, everybody could be the same, and we would have no problems.
"That is where we are headed with this 'psychological counseling' solution. He doesn't want to change. We are trying to force him to change because his temper leads to these unfortunate incidents. But, we can't go around changing everybody so that every part of their personality is completely harmless. I say, punish the individual after he does something wrong. Not before then.
Everybody else, who were spellbound from the beginning, left our seats to bow down to Dr. Howser, who we proceeded to crown our ruler. Well, all of us except Jackson, who was then excommunicated from our society and named enemy number one.
Conclusion. We find that psychological counseling is not the best way to go, and the league should just continue to fine and suspend Belle for his "incidents" as they occur.
Dittmer is a Daily Bruin sports columnist.