Alex Rodriguez is always around us. It’s not so much
because of Alex Rodriguez, but instead because of how the media will jump on his
every word, or everything he does.
The
guy is like an “old penny” my friend Randy says, and he’s right.
ARod's always there... somehow, somewhere, sometimes
annoying, and rarely ever helpful… like an old penny, like an old "ARod"…it’s the
same old story.
Let me be crystal clear. I am a fan of Alex Rodriguez and I’ll get heat for that until the day I die. No, it’s not for what he’s
done in pinstripes, but it is…er, or was, for his ability to hit the ball
harder and farther than anyone and to make one of the largest amounts of money
that I have ever seen in a career. Sure,
we can go tit-for-tat, but I don’t want to.
I liked watching Alex play and while I never considered him one of the
smarter guys on the field, he was smart enough to negotiate contract with the
Yankees that we all knew was ridiculous at the time. I do not blame any party for that, not Alex
and not the Yankees. It was business. At the time, one could argue that the man
was surely on his way to breaking the all-time home run record. The plan, according to my own theory, was to
get Alex signed long term and one day bring the all-time home run crown back to
the Bronx, where it belonged. Back then, looking at all the players available,
Alex may have been the only one who could do that. All of that changed though…
and with chaos surrounding this man and his reputation tarnished, there is no
doubt now that Alex’s time has run out.
Now you wonder, “What the hell is he talking about?”
I’ll tell you. It starts with the 1990's in baseball and ends with Biogenesis
and the connection to Anthony Bosch. Sure, nothing is proven, but Al and 20 + have
their names attached to that Biogenesis clinic and while there might not be hard evidence,
somehow Major League Baseball will be sure this time that they will
drop the hammer on these players to set the biggest example EVER of “stomping out drug use” in baseball.
Why do you ask? Because Major League Baseball has ignored this problem
since the 1990’s when PEDs were rampant.
Baseball was dying in the early 90’s
and with players hitting home runs, baseball was slowly coming back.
So, why not just turn a blind eye and let the
fans come back, right? That, in my opinion was the MLB plan...ignore it. So, we DID come back to watch the long ball and we watched smaller ballplayers get huge and
crank out home runs at an alarming rate.
Sammy Sosa,
Jose Canseco,
Mark McGwire, etc.
They were all there and they all became
baseball heroes. With that, baseball
returned bigger than ever. Couple that
with the greatest run ever by the most decorated franchise ever, the Yankees,
winning 4 titles in 5 years and we hit an all-time high in America’s National
Past time. "Perfect!", thought Major League executives…we’re back on top!
And now, after it was revealed that many players “may
have” or “may not have” used PEDs, Major League Baseball almost seemed to me
like they were caught red handed! Sure,
there was no way to prove that MLB knew all these players were using, but
observing it all and looking back now, my opinion is someone knew. So MLB decided to “enforce a system to crackdown
on PEDs.”
They did... and for a bit, it
worked, until big time players were dumb enough to still use and get
caught.
Manny Ramirez was caught twice
and then ran off to Taiwan, his reputation forever tarnished. He was always
lazy, but now he’s guilty and lazy.
Melky Cabrera was caught, and not only that, he admitted it and even had
a phony website to try and cover his tracks.
MLB handed out their “stiff” fines, and these players took the fines
like candy, only to show up after the suspension was over to play again…almost
like nothing happened.
They were back at
work and the suspension was like a halfway house or something.
Don’t believe me? Well, answer me this then;
How does Bartolo Colon get caught, admit to it , serve his 50 game suspension
and then wind up as a chosen pitcher for the 2013 American League All-Star
team? That's Bull! Yet, MLB will let it happen. I mean, doesn’t anyone see something wrong with that?
That brings me to the past 24 to 48 hours.
It’s been reported that Ryan Braun is not
cooperating with MLB investigators on his matter with Biogenesis, read
HERE.
ARod will
meet with MLB today to answer questions, read
HERE.
There is also wide speculation that both of
them, and the 20 others on the Biogenesis “list”, will be suspended for 100 games each
because of the connection with Biogenesis. I ask 1 question here…
How does that
make sense? How does someone like Melky
Cabrera, who tried to hide his trail on a phony website and admit to using only
get a 50 game suspension and these guys get 100 with basically no evidence
except for a piece of paper with their name on it? It doesn’t make sense.
(Brilliant take by Craig Calcaterra of
Hardball Talk
HERE.)
The point is, at
the end of the day, while some of the blame needs to be handed to the players
who were stupid enough to use,
much of
the blame has to go toward Major League Baseball, who is now in a pickle so
big, it HAS to do something, ANYTHING to show that this time they are really,
REALLY serious.
More serious than the
last time they were serious about cracking down.
Bottom line, it won’t matter if ARod and Braun
and the others are innocent OR guilty, MLB will do what they can with their
high priced lawyers to sway this their way because if they don’t, baseball will crumble once again and
for Bud Selig who is near the end of his career as Comissioner… well, he won’t
go out as the guy who did nothing. His ego won’t allow it.
So, he’ll do this, he'll hand down the “law of
MLB” hard… this time it’s real… and this will definitely show MLB is doing
something.
But in the end, this will be
drawn out.
There will be long appeals and players continuing to lawyer up and it will
become a circus once again and at some point, much like the
Roger Clemens
trial, the fans and the media will get tired of it, forget about it and then, most likely it will fade away.
It’s a dog-and-pony
show and we all know it… the fines, the suspensions… they don’t work.
Now, you can say I’m laying a lot of responsibility
on MLB. I am, but you get this, right?
My opinion is simply that baseball didn’t do enough, they’ve never done enough
and now they have to really and truly do something! It's my opinion of course, you can have your own,
no problem.
Alex Rodriguez is not guilty in the Biogenesis
scandal. Neither is
Ryan Braun,
Francisco Cervelli or the others… YET. But they
have been accused and that’s how our justice system works. Sure, they could be
guilty, but we just don’t know that yet.
I do know this. Selling newspapers happens when ARod’s name is attached
to it and every media outlet is doing it
You get
clicks when ARod is attached on the Internet.
You don’t when Bartolo Colon’s name’s in the headline… that’s just a
fact.
There’s that name again… ARod…
like an old penny, he’s always there.
I hate this new world of PEDs. It sucks. And so, I
have a message to MLB again, the same message I’ve had for a year now here on
Bleeding Yankee Blue… shame these guys… SHAME THEM. Fines don’t work for millionaires…
embarrassment does. You want to
humiliate a player? Tell them they aren’t a role model. You want to get through the player’s thick
skulls? Tell them they get caught 1 time, they are banned for life.
I suggested a simple Public Service Announcement,
paid for by the player caught, and hosted by the player caught (and admitted,
that’s another conversation because it gets muddy.) I'll use
Bartolo Colon as the example, after all, he's admitted guilt, read
HERE.
Play that 30 second spot on every sporting event for a few weeks. Hand out an automatic 100 game suspension, erase their stats for the entire
season they used in... make them pay.
Sure, the Player’s Union will protect their players, but if they were
really, really serious about fighting PED use in baseball, They'd cooperate with MLB and they'd do the
unthinkable, they’d actually help fight this.
MLB will ignore me, the Player's Union will to, because they've got it all figured out. They want the revenue and no scandal surrounding the sport. They
have their layers and layers of people that are just happy to have a job in the
organization and they’ll do what Bud tells them to do. But there is no doubt
this Shaming idea has to be put in place because nothing, NOTHING else works.
And ARod… yeah, I know he does these things to
himself, the shirtless trick in Central Park, the “alleged”conversation with
Anthony Bosch during the playoffs last year, read
HERE, but I’m going to say something
unusual… I feel bad for this guy.
Think
about it... How would you handle being a punching bag on a daily basis? You’d
want to scream.
Sure, he’s done a lot of
this to himself, but the media is killing him daily for every little thing he
does.
Sooner or later it feeds off
itself and it just ain’t fair after a while.
Bottom line it's time for a much harder and aggressive track if baseball really and truly wants to fix this, or... well... this will just continue to go on and on and show up every 5 to 7 years... like an old penny.
