By Flint Wheeler
Isn’t America great! Land of the second, err third (maybe even 4th) chance? It’s not the opportunity that makes us great… it’s what we do with the opportunities given to us. Now take a seat, exhale, what I have to say might be hard to swallow. But it’s what makes America the greatest country on Earth!
Baseball has a savior and his name is Alex Rodriguez. Folks, it is what it is. This great land gives the opportunity to make as much money as we’ve ever dreamt of. It allows us to make this money in any facet (hopefully legal) we feel we’d like. It also, once we completely screw it up and all hope is lost, Uncle Sam and all her patrons say, “No worries, say and do a few right things and we’ll give you another chance, just don’t screw it up again”.
A-Rod has continued – no, accelerated – his remarkable comeback to the majors, hitting .350 with three home runs and nine RBI in the last week alone, while powering the Yankees to a 5-2 record over that span. Observers of this A-Rod renaissance fall into two camps. On one side, there are those who despise Rodriguez for being a liar and a cheater and an egomaniac (and some other character flaws I’m probably forgetting, they all ran together after a while) and were hoping this season would see him reap his karmic comeuppance. Day after merciless day of failure. Strikeouts. Booing. Taunts. Let’s face it, the average baseball player bats .212, is 5’9” and unfortunately, most likely, has a bad attitude. Can’t we all finally be honest, if you are not over 50 years old, a stat-geek or Cuban, baseball sucks right now. There, I said it.
The other group entered the season happy to embrace any entertainment Rodriguez provided. If he failed miserably and did all that karma-reaping stuff, fine. But if he had a huge season like this, forcing the Yankees to awkwardly embrace him as their savior and baseball to acknowledge that he remains one of the sport’s most marketable stars? Even better. Watching hypocrites and the self-righteous squirm and backtrack is never not entertaining.
But both camps are missing the bigger story: A-Rod could be single-handedly moving baseball beyond its PED-stained past.
The 39 year-old slugger is the only big name remaining from the 1990s/early 2000s heyday of steroids-fueled baseball. Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds and Manny Ramirez are all long gone. Only Rodriguez remains. Baseball’s modern hitting stars are Mike Trout, Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton – men who are young enough to be the sons of McGwire, Sosa, Bonds and friends (assuming they were capable of producing children due to, you know … the shrinking). Yet every year, instead of building a bright future for the sport, baseball refights the old steroids battles when Hall of Fame voting rolls around. “Sure, Mike Trout is an amazing talent, but how about we yell at each other over players from 15 years ago instead?” says baseball.
A-Rod can get us beyond all that.
The guy took steroids. A lot of steroids probably. That’s true. And he lied about it. Repeatedly. Also true. But guess what? He’s also really, really good at baseball. And like the argument about Bonds, you know, “He was a hall a famer BEFORE the ‘Roids’. A-Rod, even without steroids is one of the games lite players, as this season is proving. If you read through the names on the Mitchell Report, there is a whole load of terrible baseball players on that list. Steroids don’t make you good at baseball.
Barry Bonds was awesome at baseball. Even without steroids. Alex Rodriguez is awesome at baseball. Even at age 39 and without steroids. The Hall of Fame is supposed to be a place that recognizes everyone who was awesome at baseball. That’s it.
So, yeah, A-Rod is a cheater. A-Rod is a liar. A-Rod is an egomaniac. A-Rod is also one of the greatest baseball players in the history of the sport, with or without substances. Please, let’s just all finally recognize that, stop focusing on the past, and finally – peacefully – enjoy what baseball has to offer now.
Deal? Good talk J
Now let’s just hope A-Rod doesn’t get busted for PEDs again.
