Alex Rodriguez is suspended for the entire 2014 baseball season. It's January, and I wish that was the last we were gonna hear about it. But we're gonna hear about it endlessly. I swear, and hold me to this, I will make an over/under for how many times his name his mentioned during the 2014 World Series whether the the Yankees are in the damn thing or not.
Alex Rodriguez should have been a tax accountant. Those guys are paid to find every trick and loophole imaginable. Alex Rodriguez, by all accounts, was a tremendously gifted baseball player who got a monster contract at a very young age. He wasn't a case of a margin player just trying to stay in the game to "feed his family". His whole family could have wound up on The Biggest Loser sweatin' off filet mignon for the undeniably alluring ab crunching, rug munching Jillian Michaels…
Yeah, we know. You don't like boys.
We don't care. We like you back.
...just off the interest on his first sports drink contract.
Let me make something clear (and "the cream") : I don't have a problem with performance enhancers per se. I understand why some players would be tempted; I understand wanting to be better at something, it's why I flunked 7th grade trying to finish that ball bearing maze game.
I understand peer pressure, otherwise I never would have been caught dead in moon boots. And I understand wanting to earn more money, because right now I'm so broke I don't just wanna sell plasma, I wanna steal other people's and scalp it.
But Alex Rodriguez had tons of money, tons of talent (and a long offseason with nothing to do but keep in shape) and had to be the envy of many aspiring major leaguers. And ya know what ? I might still let him slide, except for one major thing: He's fighting it. He pissed tested positive as early as 2002, admitted it and said he "deeply regretted" it.There is a fantastic New York Daily News Aroid timeline here.
If he "deeply regretted" it, he would have stopped. But he didn't, and toppled some records while his bloodstream was dirtier than Zug Island sushi. And now he's fighting his suspension??
I don't really care about Alex P. Cheatin's effect on baseball's "legacy" or baseball's holy place in pastoral American lore. Hi, Major League Baseball, some of the most talented American baseball players weren't even allowed to play for half a goddamn century, so you can swallow the pious bullshit that HGH and P.E.R. soiled your virgin underclothes.
I do care that a rich spoiled asshole who knows he's guilty is gonna drag out this TruTV saddle soap opera when I'm simply trying to watch Justin Verlander make the Seattle Mariners go Cano and 27.
In one of the few things the NCAA does right, when a team is on probation they are not allowed to appear on a national television broadcast and any records or trophies are vacated.
It would have been lovely if the former first ballot Hall of Famer would have issued a statement admitting that he's seen more needles than Keith Richards' guitar tech and gone quietly to just about anywhere on the globe, but again, he didn't. He's trying to salvage some kind of relationship with the national pastime after she caught him with "hitty porn", and it ain't gonna happen.
So baseball telecasts, ala the NCAA, should omit any reference to him, his absence, the "ongoing" issue, or anything else that doesn't occur between the foul lines, because Alex Rodriguez has been crossing a line he knew was foul for decades and he just doesn't deserve our attention any longer. He was on the original CBS Newsmagazine tonight, but I didn't watch, because as far as I'm concerned, his 60 minutes are up.
Alex Rodriguez should have been a tax accountant. Those guys are paid to find every trick and loophole imaginable. Alex Rodriguez, by all accounts, was a tremendously gifted baseball player who got a monster contract at a very young age. He wasn't a case of a margin player just trying to stay in the game to "feed his family". His whole family could have wound up on The Biggest Loser sweatin' off filet mignon for the undeniably alluring ab crunching, rug munching Jillian Michaels…
We don't care. We like you back.
...just off the interest on his first sports drink contract.
Let me make something clear (and "the cream") : I don't have a problem with performance enhancers per se. I understand why some players would be tempted; I understand wanting to be better at something, it's why I flunked 7th grade trying to finish that ball bearing maze game.
But Alex Rodriguez had tons of money, tons of talent (and a long offseason with nothing to do but keep in shape) and had to be the envy of many aspiring major leaguers. And ya know what ? I might still let him slide, except for one major thing: He's fighting it. He pissed tested positive as early as 2002, admitted it and said he "deeply regretted" it.There is a fantastic New York Daily News Aroid timeline here.
If he "deeply regretted" it, he would have stopped. But he didn't, and toppled some records while his bloodstream was dirtier than Zug Island sushi. And now he's fighting his suspension??
I don't really care about Alex P. Cheatin's effect on baseball's "legacy" or baseball's holy place in pastoral American lore. Hi, Major League Baseball, some of the most talented American baseball players weren't even allowed to play for half a goddamn century, so you can swallow the pious bullshit that HGH and P.E.R. soiled your virgin underclothes.
I do care that a rich spoiled asshole who knows he's guilty is gonna drag out this TruTV saddle soap opera when I'm simply trying to watch Justin Verlander make the Seattle Mariners go Cano and 27.
In one of the few things the NCAA does right, when a team is on probation they are not allowed to appear on a national television broadcast and any records or trophies are vacated.
It would have been lovely if the former first ballot Hall of Famer would have issued a statement admitting that he's seen more needles than Keith Richards' guitar tech and gone quietly to just about anywhere on the globe, but again, he didn't. He's trying to salvage some kind of relationship with the national pastime after she caught him with "hitty porn", and it ain't gonna happen.
So baseball telecasts, ala the NCAA, should omit any reference to him, his absence, the "ongoing" issue, or anything else that doesn't occur between the foul lines, because Alex Rodriguez has been crossing a line he knew was foul for decades and he just doesn't deserve our attention any longer. He was on the original CBS Newsmagazine tonight, but I didn't watch, because as far as I'm concerned, his 60 minutes are up.
A-Rod convinced several players to go to the same "clinic" he went to. One of them was ex-Tiger Jhonny Peralta. Then when his ass got in trouble, after recruiting these guys, he squealed on them.........gave 'em up so he could worm his way out of it. That's why everyone in baseball hates him. Nobody likes a rat. He should be thrown out for good, but you know what? He's going to end up suing MLB - and he's going to win millions.
ReplyDeleteHe's not gonna win.
ReplyDeleteHave always hated aroid and will always.
ReplyDeleteWrong url for my page.
DeleteA-Rod's constant press conferences and legal wranglings will indeed take up more time on ESPN and every sports station of every medium during 2014 than highlights and scores. That is a fucking shame. This may also be the tipping point. This should be when sports has to realize ( much like the U.S. government and their prohibition on pot ) that they cannot win against PEDs. Want proof? Who brings his own ball to his sport and was faster than Secretariat?
DeleteWhen you were in high school and Johnny Homo the football quarterback got suspended for smoking a joint with Little Nancy Cotton Pants under the bleachers did that make you stop buying joints from the kid with The Clash T-shirt? No. No it didn't.
Death sentences are not deterrents for sociopaths. A year's suspension will not dent the use of HGHs, PEDs, or amino acid flavored Count Chocula.
It is time to start from the drawing board. THIS is not working.
I definitely agree that there will always be users.But hopefully it will be like NFL DUI suspensions. You here about it, then you don't here again until the player comes back. Unless he's a major, major star.Which I guess ARoid is.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, baseball has a players' union with mechanisms for arbitration. Basically, that means Mr. Rodriguez' lawsuit is a heavy favorite to get tossed. When you accept the union's protection and procedures, you largely forfeit your right to go to court when you don't like the result of your hearing.
ReplyDeleteI hope that's the case. But if the Yankees do make the postseason, Buck will bring up his absence every time someone hits a ball to the warning track.
Delete