When the word came out over the weekend that Alex Rodriguez had tested positive for something or other at some point in the recent past, our first thought was: "Grrrreaaat...here we go again."Maybe we should care more about the sanctity of the game, and fair play, and the inviolability of the game's milestones and records. But at this point, we just don't give a shit.
If there is anything good that has come out of this week's events, it may be that A-Rod provides an exclamation mark onto the end of this era. Maybe now, we can just accept that it is impossible to look at the last 15 years of baseball and pluck out the inconvenient and unpalatable numbers of a few bad eggs, and just accept the fact that everybody was probably doing something.
People have been trying to separate the black-hatted bad guys from the noble and righteous good guys in all of this mess so that they can align themselves with the pure essence of the game. Our souls were all going to be cleansed in seven or eight years' time when Rodriguez (the personally flawed but professionally impeccable slugger) claimed the home run record from the dastardly Barry Bonds. What a relief that would have been.
Except that it was all a load of hooey anyways, and people need to just get over themselves.
We need to stop relying on multiple anonymous sources and ill-gotten grand jury testimony to root out the cheaters, because it will only prove to be an endless and futile proposition to try to separate the good guys from the bad.
(Wasn't there a time when four anonymous sources wasn't enough to forge ahead on a story? If you want to write a piece about how players took the easy way out and circumvented the virtuous path, wouldn't it be best if you yourself didn't circumvent the more difficult path of getting an on-the-record source?)
We need to stop discounting the achievements of hitters from this era, like Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, and Mark McGwire, because there's really no way of distinguishing their achievements from those who got caught. It's become a fool's errand.
Knowing what we now know, is there anyone who feels as though they could take the information gleaned this week and make the claim that Carlos Delgado rightfully deserves the 2003 AL MVP award since we know that A-Rod took performance enhancers?
Not to imply anything...but we're not about to stake out that supposed moral high ground for ourselves.
well put Tao.
ReplyDeleteI believe that Thomas never used steroids.
ReplyDeleteThat guy is a class act
Henry Thomas? From E.T.?
ReplyDeleteyou're being weird
ReplyDeleteYOU'RE being weird.
ReplyDeleteWeirdo.
The only thing worse than the steroid witch hunt is the sanctimonious Canadian horseshit about no positive NHL tests.
ReplyDeleteThey're just good ol'boys, working hard at the sod farm.
Never mind that hockey players have the MOST to gain from using PED, not to mention the sudden increase of athletes playing into their 40's in a high contact sport. BASEBALL IS FOR CHEATERS
Aroid is not alone, how 'bout Frank Thomas and Co. Maybe Vernon should take HGH! Or even his lazy friend, Rios. It's funny how Aroid came out and lied 'bout Selena Roberts..........
ReplyDeleteBruno Von Rottweiller
Fuck it the majortiy was probably on something, who cares! They were all playing by the 'rules' that Bud had at the time. A-Rod, Bonds, McGwire, Clemens you always hear about but what about all the others who did it but didn't set any records or had a hard time staying in the bigs - Howie Clark, Gregg Zaun, Nook Logan, Bobby Estalella, Ozzie Canseco, Sergio Mitre.
ReplyDeleteYou still need to hit the ball, catch the ball, throw strikes.
Bonds, McGwire, et al., all deserve to be in the Hall of Fame - they still took illegal substances and that should be handled by the law but the person baseball should go after is BUD SELIG - this happened under his watch and he refused to do anything about it!
Tao is WEIRD !
ReplyDeleteI kind of get why people get upset. Baseball more then any other sport uses stats as a way to compare a player from one era to another. Players who used performance enhancing drugs fucked that comparison right up.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I'm with you Tao. I'm tired of the witch hunts, I'm tired of all the self-righteous bullshit spewing from reporters. Lets move on. Or if we can't move on at least lets lay the blame on all involved. Out of Left Field made a great point about how the enablers of all this (agents and owners) are getting off completely free while individual players are being hammered.
Furthermore, and lastly, I cannot believe that Rodriquez' name was the only one released in this anonymous test. I dislike the man just as much as anyone but that is some serious bullshit right there.
Frank Thomas? Classy?
ReplyDeleteYeah, but .... NOT Greg Maddux, right?
ReplyDeleteRIGHT?!!
How is Thomas not classy ?
ReplyDeleteThe guy has always carried himself the right way
He didn't leave here on great terms, but what do you expect. He hits 26 homeruns, and the next year gets stiffed by Rogers for his at-bat bonus.
He was the only one who actively spoke against steroids. That takes integrity
Root them all out and embarass them in front of the world...yes, I am jealous of their women and money.
ReplyDeleteWait a second. So, was Carlos on the juice or not?
ReplyDeleteI say yes, so long as we add Mike Mussina to the list too. It's only fair, and we need to put any HoF talk about him to rest too.
ReplyDeleteBecause he has standards
ReplyDelete