 Harold Reynolds today on MLBN. He’s not taking this well but he thinks it’s important that the truth should come out. I have to agree with him. (Screengrabbed by me) |
I don’t like Alex Rodriguez. Haven’t since he left Seattle. I believe he’s a money-grubbing, purple lipstick-wearing, annoying, “mine”-yelling, stripper-visiting, wife-cheating, lying, ball-slapping, jerk.
But I never thought we’d hear that he did steroids.
Maybe this makes me naive. I’m okay with that. Call me naive. Slapping the ball was cheating. Yelling “mine” might not have, technically, been cheating, but it was certainly bush. So cheating isn’t exactly foreign to him, right? I know this. I get it. But steroids? That’s huge. And don’t tell me everyone does/did it. Everyone doesn’t do it. A lot of players? Sure, I’ll buy that. A lot of players either have done or currently are doing it. But that means nothing. Just because a lot of players do it doesn’t mean everyone has done it. So I’m not one of those people who just assumes every player has used. I don’t. I’m still the opposite. I assume the players aren’t cheating until it’s been proven that they have. Sports Illustrated having two independent sources and ESPN having one as well, saying he tested positive in 2003 for steroids hit me a lot harder than I expected.
I want to be happy about it like many of my friends are. I’m not. (Although I will admit to not minding that this will cause a huge distraction for the Yankees. In the abstract, I’m giddy at the idea of the Yankees having to deal with this crap. But as far as how this affects baseball? It makes me very sad.)
There are 103 other names on that list. I don’t pretend that some of them couldn’t be from the Red Sox (or just be players I like who don’t happen to play for the Red Sox). So I’m not looking at ARod and thinking ” HA! Now the scourge of steroids is finally driven out!”. Knowing that the biggest player in MLB has cheated in the past is just flat-out depressing. And the idea of a Garciaparra, Ortiz or anyone else I support being on that list upsets the hell out of me.
In the meantime, we have images of ARod telling Katie Couric that he’s never cheated. We have MLB Network playing a WEEI interview with Jose Canseco saying ARod isn’t who folks think he is. Soon, Bob Costas is going to be live on MLBN talking with Selena Roberts from Sports Illustrated to give us a better understanding of what we’re hearing. Truck Day was yesterday. We should be celebrating the beginning of the season, not lamenting the downfall of a superstar.
I’m sad. Sad for baseball and sad for baseball fans.
But I’m also worried about who else might be on that list.