Say That It's So

When President Obama (still a nice ring to that) commented yesterday in his first press conference that the Alex Rodriguez steroid admission left him depressed, he vocalized my own emotions regarding the poor little Rich Boy and his public humiliation. For the last week my mind has been working overtime in contortions to rationalize anything salvageable about Arod's damning confession.

It has come up empty.

I still recall the moment vividly in the fall of 2003 when I gleefully called a friend who was both a Yankee fan and an Arod adolater that the two entities had been married. "Arod is a Yankee!" I announced as he picked up the phone. Little did I suspect that that same pronouncement would signal the end of the Yankee dynasty for years to come, perhaps forever. That was two months after the Yanks had lost the World Series but had blessed me with one of the great baseball moments, the pennant-winning home run from Aaron Boone which I had famously called days earlier. That, it turned out, was the last glory day of the Bronx Bombers to this moment. After having watched Arod slump in post-season play and in many late-inning rallies my most proiound prediction has become that the Yanks would win no championships so long as Arod was on the team.

The Yankee braintrust was willing, perhaps, to accept that fate so long as Arod stayed with the team long enough to bring the career home run record--the gold standard of all sports achievements--back to Yankee Stadium after it had been borrowed by Hank Aaron and then swiped less elegantly by Barry Bonds. Arod, with his strength and consistency, was considered to be likely for at least 800 homers, maybe even surpassing Sadaharu Oh for the true World Record. That would have brought excitement back to the stadium (even if the team floundered), if not promising to fill the seats, which already have been presold for the rest of this century.

Now that moment of 763 or whatever, will be as tainted as Bonds' was in PacBell Park a few years ago. It seems that Arod has nothing to work for except perhaps to prove me wrong and actually win a World Series ring. But--is that condemnation the final word? Or is it even fair?

If Arod's comments are to be taken for the gospel (questionable), he only was pumped up for the years he played with Texas, when he averaged 52 homers a year. His "non-steroid" stats were almost exactly the same for most offensive categories, except he averaged 41 homers in those years. So subtracting the difference of 33 homers for his cheating years, and assuming cleanliness for the rest, he can still be admired if he beats the previous record (Aarons', not Bonds') by that total. It also makes his 2007 season, with 55 homers and 156 RBIs, seem like the best untainted offensive season of the decade.

Arod will perhaps regain some of his lustre by his wise decision to admit to usage, a PR strategy that kept other players like Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte out of the public's opprobrium. Others, though, like Bonds, Clemens, Palmeiro, Sosa and McGwire listened to their lawyers (almost always a bad idea), denied involvement, and are now Scum of the Earth.

There is one issue that is undeniably unjust about all the brouhaha, which is that there are 104 other players who tested positive for usage, and who have yet to be cited. One hundred and four! Although their exposure would not make the headlines than that of the aforementioned All Stars, why should they not have to answer publically to the same offenses? Just because they performed less audaciously? Would the likes of, say, Tony Womack or Kevin Millar or Andruw Jones (the last the most likely), piddly offensive performers, render them less guilty? 104 players conprises more than four rosters worth of cheaters.

In that enormous company of transgressors, the indiscretions of Arod and his brethren would appear less odious and more typical of an unfortunate era. Arod should not be singled out because of his homers. Reveal the Steroid Century! Then we can talk.