I'm not a fan of Alex Rodriguez, especially when he plays against the Angels.
But even though I think steroids has had a negative impact on the history of baseball, I'm not one of those fans who will go out of their way to condemn a player for trying to find a competitive edge.
Do I think it sucks? Yeah, it does.
Does it send the wrong message? Of course.
But the truth of the matter is, that steroids weren't illegal in baseball until recently and players shouldn't be punished now for taking performance enhancers back then.
I have heard the argument that nobody cared that Mark McGwire used steroids when he broke the single season home run record.
I agree. Because I was one of those fans. I was guilty of turning a blind eye.
Everybody knew he was using back then. It was the worst kept secret in sports. Let's be honest, a player doesn't get arms like Popeye by doing an all natural workout.
Nobody wanted to know. They just wanted to see him break a record that was decades old.
So now that it has been revealed that A-Rod used steroids, I'm not going to condemn the man for taking performance enhancers.
That would be hypocritical of me.
But I am going to condemn him for lying to everybody about it.
Way back in 2007, A-Rod was asked point blank by Katie Couric if he ever took steroids. Rodriguez responded with an emphatic "No".
He went on to claim that he never felt the need to take steroids because he never felt the competitive pressure to take them. Rodriguez stated, "I've never felt overmatched on the baseball field. I've always been in a very strong, dominant position. And I felt that if I did my work as I've done since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I didn't have a problem competing at any level."
Oh really?
The truth of the matter is, Rodriguez did feel the pressure to perform at an elite level. The fact that he tried to pass off his talents as completely God given, while dismissing other players skills as average in comparison is reprehensible.
Another great quote from that 2007 interview includes Rodriguez stating his disappointment in players that would be named in the Mitchell Report. Rodriguez states, "I mean, these are guys that I play with. They're my teammates. If anything comes of this, I will be extremely disappointed. And it will be a huge black eye on the game of baseball."
Keep in mind, this was 4 years after he, himself, tested positive for steroids.
The moral here is that people make mistakes, especially under extreme amounts of pressure. Don't lie and make things more complicated by putting yourself in a position of judgment or worse, claim to be cut from a higher moral cloth, especially when you are just as guilty.
1 comment:
Another tragic aspect of A-Rod becoming A-Roid is the fact that his steroid use didn't really help him, statistically, which is probably because baseball is almost totally about mental sharpness and physical coordination, not brute strength. It doesn't make sense that such good players would mess themselves up like that.
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