If I stick one hand in a blender and the other in a garbage disposal, knowing that I’ll have to turn one of them on, should I be congratulated upon choosing the blender? Should I brandish the mangled stump around, while lauding my own wisdom?

This was essentially the position in which baseball commissioner Bud Selig found himself yesterday. The problem dates back to June, when Selig threatened to fine or suspend Jason Giambi for statements made to reporter Bob Nightengale that could be taken as an admission of past steroid use. As the players’ union quickly pointed out, the authority under which Selig is legally able to do this, if we’re speaking charitably, is summoned from the penumbras and emanations of the sport’s collective bargaining agreement and drug policy. More realistically, he has no such powers at all. If he had fined or suspended Giambi, the union would have taken the case to arbitration, and they would have won. Still, Selig magnanimously offered Giambi a chance to avoid hassle, unpleasantness, and embarrassment if he would cooperate with Senator Mitchell’s ridiculous steroids investigation.

If this happened in any other area of life, it would rightly be called blackmail. As is, it worked, and after making clear that he would not be snitching on anyone, Giambi took up the offer.

Thus we come to yesterday’s announcement that Giambi would not be fined and would not be suspended, a bit of non-news that even got its own press release, which tried to make Giambi out to be a stool pigeon. “Jason was frank and candid with Senator Mitchell,” Selig said, according to the release. “That and his impressive charitable endeavors convinced me it was unnecessary to take further action.”

“Impressive charitable endeavors”? The press release goes on to quote from a letter Selig wrote to Giambi, praising him for lavishing $100,000 and some of his valuable time to an anti-drug charity and two inner-city baseball programs run by Major League Baseball. The intent here is clear: Selig wants to show that while he chose not to fine or suspend Giambi, he was able to force him to cough up a lot of money in exchange for simply saying in veiled terms what everyone already knows, which is that he took steroids.

In all, this would seem to be a clear win for the commissioner; by essentially blackmailing a player, he was able to bend him to his will. It wasn’t. Selig just pressed the button on the blender.

The key fact in this whole ludicrous story is not Giambi’s confession, nor his charitable endeavors, nor his doubtlessly free and open conversations with the esteemed Senator Mitchell. It’s Selig’s claim that he can punish a player for saying something. To put this novel claim in perspective, consider that baseball’s drug policy explicitly bars the commissioner from punishing a player for any drug-related offenses committed prior to the implementation of the current policy. In other words, Giambi can come dump a load of medical documents on Selig’s desk proving that he was on everything from the Clear to Equipoise in 2002, and suffer no consequences. Selig’s claim to power is thus utterly groundless.

What’s worse than claiming a power one does not have, though, is claiming it and then not exercising it. This weakens the claim and invites derision. Having even brought up the possibility of fining or suspending Giambi, Selig had to either do so and face certain defeat at the hands of the union, or not do so, and thus back down from his claims of extraordinary powers. This is essentially what he’s done — after having all but vowed to make an example out of Giambi and grind him under baseball’s thumb, punishing him by forcing him to donate cash to worthy charities and hang out with some probably charming kids at a baseball clinic is embarrassingly thin stuff, especially since Giambi is, to all appearances, choosing not to fight back just to spare himself and his team some grief.

Amusingly, it’s unclear if Selig is aware of these dynamics, and whether he thinks he truly has discretion over what players are and aren’t allowed to say. One thing is certain: If he keeps trying this ploy, he’s eventually going to try it on someone who wants to fight back, and that someone will win. Bud Selig is the head of baseball management, not the crowned czar of the sport; if he has any sense at all, he’ll take this faint semblance of a victory over a player who did nothing wrong, and never speak of it again.

tmarchman@nysun.com