A-Rod: A Shallow Apology

Watching Alex Rodriguez' confessional on television Tuesday, I was wondering how long it would take for him to offer significant portions of his bloated salary to benefit some of our nation's schools and neighborhoods. How long before he committed to speaking engagements in Boys Clubs, YMCAs and churches on the evils of drugs? You had to wonder why he never offered to share some of his loot and his time away from the game for these purposes. It would have been magnanimous of Rodriguez to have pledged the money for 100 bleacher seats in the new Yankee Stadium for the coming season. Set them aside for poor kids, perhaps even Little Leaguers in the east Bronx, then spend 15 minutes of each pre-game warmup in a Q&A with A-Rod, about the evil of drugs. But it was just not high on his agenda.

It shows you what a sap I was. But then, I asked myself, why didn't some of those perceptive sportswriters who attended the stage-managed press conference in Florida by the New York Yankees organization ever think to have asked these same questions? Instead they just let A-Rod off, Scot-free. Along with that unnamed cousin of his in the Dominican Republic who he claims introduced and injected him with illegal drugs a dozen years ago.

Don't get me wrong. I am a lifelong baseball fan and a Yankee one to boot. But I'm angry as hell about the betrayal of major league baseball's players, club owners, agents, and the high and mighty players' union who have self-righteously stood up for the integrity of the game while turning their cheeks the other way for years and allowed drug usage by inference to soil the reputations of most players. And not only the "clean players" but the national pastime itself. If individuals choose to cover up, then the institution owes us, the fans who support the game with our dollars week in and week out, the courage to stand up to the bums who are spoiling the reputation of the game we raised our kids to worship.

Bud Selig, the commissioner, clearly is not the man for the job or he would have suspended Rodriguez for an unspecified period of time. But again and again, he's shown himself to be a wimp when it has come time to make the tough calls. What baseball needs is a Bart Giamatti or a Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis, armed with the powers to govern the sport; with an iron fist if need be. Giamatti, the former Yale professor who presided as commissioner in the 1980s was a tough overseer before his untimely death. He would have imposed some tough love on A-Rod. Under Landis, the first commissioner chosen to govern baseball after the notorious Black Sox Scandal of the 1920s, Rodriguez would have been gone. Back then, the judge used the power of expulsion to cleanse the sport of its potential crooks. And make no mistake of it, the drug users are nothing less than crooks, having stolen our youngsters' hearts by soiling the reputation of the game and confusing the kids who have grown up loving baseball.

Clearly, what Rodriguez has shown, merely by saying he was sorry for what he had done, is that the game has run out of excuses, alibis and cover-ups. The people who control baseball ought to stop being front men for the weak-minded drug users. It should be two strikes now and maybe then, the third one will not be quite as painful.

Comments

[jaslyn]

He may be a good player, but he's not the sharpest tool in the shed.

[AN2009]

I think A-Rod should be penalized -- same thing for team owners who permit their players to shoot up.

[pizzmoe]

"The people who control baseball ought to stop being front men for the weak-minded drug users."

No, the people who play baseball should stop being front men for weak minded team owners

[Calinative]

Pro baseball is entertainment. That's all. A-Rod is an entertainer. Major League Baseball is not the Olympics. He doesn't play to represent the country. He plays for money. I could care less if he or anyone else is on steroids.

By the way, pro wrestling is fake.

[jaslyn]

agree. Why all the hoopla and coverage for this tired old issue.

[miltchocklit]

First of all, I could care less who took steroids or when they took them. I want to be entertained and I am. Second, while you are "outraged" at the ruining of the sport you taught your kids to "worship", from the first time I ever went to a baseball game in the '60's, my father told me baseball was all about cheating and "getting the edge any way you can". So, Murray, bfore you get all holier-than-thou, take a real look at baseball's past before you get a hump about the present. And, by the way, where is the outraged article about the asshat who leaked A-Rod's name? Barry Bond's name? Both of those individuals are felons.

[Bloodwart]

So, Murray, if you feel betrayed stop enabling baseball by continuing to support it. If you feel you've been played for a sap stop spending money on tickets and don't watch it on TV.

I loved baseball but my enthusiasm has waned over the years. First was the designated hitter rule, then the strike when these millionaires and billionaires took away our World Series. I've never recovered from that although I confess I enjoyed the McGwire-Sosa days. And when somebody makes more money in one at-bat than a guy parking cars does all year and then admits he broke the rules, goodbye! It is an obscenity.

Wake me when football season starts.

[jhNY]

But Bud Selig is the master of the last disasterous baseball players strike, and also presided over its comeback the very next year, when several fat-headed and mightiy muscled bat-wielders hit more home runs in a single season than any other time in baseball history, to the delight of most fans, who themselves are mostly casual fans of the game, and thus love the home run more than the knowlegeable fans they outnumber. Fans returned to park their fannies in the stadium seats; viewer ratings climbed back to near pre-strike levels, and the baseball business was saved.

Now Bud is shocked, shocked(!) that there was gambling at Rick's! Please. Nearly all incentives in all major league contracts, and all raises in salaries in new contracts, are performance-based. Once McGwire juiced up and took the all-time single-season title, and the fame, and the endorsements, it was inevitable that Sosa would follow, followed by Bonds,Sheffield, etc., through to A-Rod, brightest young star of the game. Yes, the Player's Union tried to preotect its membership. But Bud could have done much more. But that would have taken away a lot of that home-run excitement right when the baseball business needed it most.

[rzan1]

What does A-Rod care? He is richer than God. Maybe he should have stayed in Seattle.

[Nommo]

I'd say that Ozzie Guillen's comment pretty much covers it.

[DenaSilver]

To whoever wrote the headline for this article, "Shallow"? Did you actually watch?
He handled himself with humility and explained thoroughly the situation.
Where are the coaches? The supposed grown-ups in charge of the team.
And what to do about baseball...not the point of that news conference.

[Nommo]

One thing baseball does not need is another Landis. What baseball needs is to lose the anti-trust exemption. Nothing keeps an industry honest like a little competition.