Alex Rodriguez’s admission to steroid use from 2001-2003 yesterday was the latest example of tarnish and cheating and lying. Young? Not too young to cash the big checks! Stupid, yes, I’ll readily agree. Greedy? Check. Selfish? Surely. A hero? Not.
They say he’ll be treated better because he was honest and admitted steroid use. Yet there wasn’t much of an apology was there?
As I read the breaking story he only “came clean” after the results were released of a 2003 random drug test that showed him testing positive. Not exactly a forthright confession in my opinion, especially after his bold-faced lie to Katie Couric as recently as 2007 attesting that he never used performance enhancing drugs. I mean, how about the Texas Rangers, and their fans, and now the Yankee organization and their fans as well as all those who hold the record books as hallowed? Not sure I can believe his stop date, or the start date, for that matter….only Alex knows for sure.
Already sports writers have jumped to the plausibility that he will be granted leniency in the Hall of Fame vote! I’d like to see ¼ of Alex’s remaining contract pay be diverted to Whitey Ford and those legitimate Hall of Famers who played and excelled for the love of the game, to buttress their pittance pensions. Only when Alex and other major league cheaters feel it in the wallet, can we imagine that they will be truly sorry. In the meantime, let me tell you, cheating doesn’t pay in the long term, and the costs along the way are far greater than anyone could ever imagine.
Why doesn’t Alex admit something obvious while he’s at it? Why doesn’t he admit that he continues to be an albatross to the NY Yankees, even absent his latest confession? Where have all the championship rings gone that were supposed to grace their fingers, once Sir Alex was signed?
Why, when the National Baseball League, or National Football League, or National Hockey League for all that matter, have consistently been riddled with drug-laced meatheads masquerading like athletes, don’t they test every week, alternating the days of the week of the tests? I would far rather have a portion of my bloated ticket price funnel to increased frequency drug testing than to pad the cheaters’ paychecks and pensions!
I can acknowledge that people make mistakes. I’ve certainly made a couple. Yet, I do have a problem with people deliberately taking measures into their own hands, when they’ve been unwilling to do the hard (and often time consuming) work of achievement! What kind of example are they setting? Where’s the risk and reward standard?
On a similar note, what’s Illinois’ Ex Gov. Rod Blagojevich so concerned with what his young daughter will think of his conviction and impeachment, all of a sudden? Somehow I think he got the order wrong! Children aren’t stupid and the lucky ones have 2 eyes and 2 ears with which to observe and make their own judgments about all adults, yes especially their parents.
I must draw a marked distinction here however between Alex’s latent admission and Rod’s continued defiance regarding their respective cheating. Alex does offer a semblance of hope, for which I’m exceedingly grateful.
Don’t we all know the saying, pigs get fatter, and hogs get slaughtered? Do I have to revert back to my farm days and produce pictures of pigs and hogs for people to be able to differentiate and understand?
I mean here’s to capitalism and all, yet good bye to unabated greed and above-the-law egotism!