I haven’t written anything for the past four days. Did you notice? Of course you didn’t, you don’t exist. I’m the only person who knows this blog* even exists. At least I think I am. That would be weird/creepy if you did. Anyways, as I was saying, I was in the south of Spain over the weekend and didn’t really think much about the A’s, or baseball at all for that matter. That is, until really late Saturday night when I was reading the headlines of the NYT. Let’s see. Congress still can’t decide on stimulus plan. More foreclosures in Florida. Afghan leader falling out with White House. 75% of all Russian sales in November were done through barter. Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids.
Hmm. That last one sounds kind of important.
You know what I thought when I read that headline: No, shit. And by no, shit, I mean, wow, I am not in the least bit surprised that A-Rod did steroids. Nope, not one bit. Sounds important, but not surprised. I also thought: hmm I wonder how many headlines will have the phrase “A-Roid” in them tomorrow morning?
So A-Rod did steroids. If you are surprised or angered I feel sorry for you. No, seriously I do. Come on man it was 2003. You did steroids, he did steroids, heck I’m pretty sure I did steroids. I mean, that year I grew five inches, gained forty pounds. Even had a few pimples on my back. Oh wait. That’s called puberty. Never mind.
A brief side note about Rodriguez. Do not give me this crap that A-Rod is a man and that he’s standing up to his mistakes. He’s not. It’s a fact. Let me jog your memory.
Katie Couric: For the record, have you ever used steroids, human growth hormone or any other performance enhancing substances?
Alex Rodriguez: No. I’ve never felt overmatched on the baseball field. 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.
Hm. That’s funny Alex, because I remember you saying this today:
"When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day.”
“I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.
“I felt a tremendous pressure to play, and play really well. I had just signed this enormous contract ... I felt like I needed something, a push, without over-investigating what I was taking, to get me to the next level."
Okay man. We get it. You were feeling some pressure. Take a hit man. Jeez.
Okay back to the story.
But seriously, everybody was doing it. That year 103 players not named Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids. And that number doesn’t even include Barry Bonds. He was clean. Well, the first time at least. 103. That’s a ridiculously high number when you consider that not even every player in the league was tested. The 103+1 just includes the guys who actually got randomly selected.
But when I heard that A-Rod+ 103 had tested positive for steroids there was another number that stuck out. 2003. That’s six years ago. What the fuck MLB? Not cool. Not cool at all. Barry Bonds is about to go to trial next month for something that conservatively 10-15% of his peers were doing. Yea, I know. Bonds isn’t going to trial for roiding, per se, but he probably wouldn’t have lied about it under oath if he had never been under oath in the first place. Kind of like those other 104 guys. (I guess it’s actually 94 since 9 other players were targets of the BALCO investigation.)
But seriously, why are we just now finding out about some drug tests that took place in 2003? Well, if the league and the union had their way, we never would have heard about these tests at all. Apparently, the idea behind the 2003 tests was that they would be used as a survey. If more than 5% of the players tested positive, then the league and the union would actually sort of think about maybe doing something the next year. Turns out 5% had, and it wasn’t even close. Oops. But still, baseball wouldn’t budget. In fact, the only reason why we have these positive tests is because the feds busted into a couple of labs and stole them from some dudes in white coats.
So now A-Rod’s cover is blown, and quite possibly your favorite player’s cover will be blown soon, as well. I don't know who leaked the information, and I don’t really care. A-Rod did steroids and there’s no way around it. One day he will be the all-time homerun king. But there might never be a day when he makes it to Cooperstown. #1 and #2 not in the Hall. But that’s not the only thing Alex and Barry have in common. They also tested positive for the same freaking steroid. Primobolan. Yet Alex is still in the midst of a record-breaking contract and Barry is facing time. By the way, I don’t think that he will ever serve a day.
But this is not about A-Rod. No. No. No. And it’s not about Barry. It’s about baseball. And how arbitrary and ridiculous the whole league is. A-Rod got protected. Barry didn’t. A-Rod was marketable. Barry was a dick. It’s about how in baseball, the bottomline is the bottomline. Bud Selig and Major League Baseball, and the owners and the union and the players are all out there to make as much money as possible. And having a competent drug program impedes that goal. But don’t blame baseball, its just business.
And Bud Selig is a good businessman. If you do not believe me, think about the fact that in the time it takes Bud to drink his coffee in the morning he probably makes more money than you do in a month, maybe a year.
And one last thing. Tom Hicks. Go screw yourself. Hicks to the AP earlier today:
"I feel personally betrayed. I feel deceived by Alex. He assured me that he had far too much respect for his own body to ever do that to himself.”
If by betrayed he means: thank you for all that money you made me when I sold little replica jerseys with your name on the back. Then fine. I take back what I said. But seriously Tom, go fuck yourself. Do you really expect me to believe that you didn’t know Alex was juicing? Have you ever met Jose, Juan or Ivan? Have you ever even watched your team play?
The owners knew about it, the league knew about it, the writers new about it, the union reps knew about it, the players knew about it. Some of the players even knew about the tests.
According to the initial SI report the other day, A-Rod was tipped off by union COO Gene Orza about an upcoming test in 2004. But again he wasn’t the only one.
On Saturday MLB drug czar Rob Manfred had this to say about any such tipping:
“Any allegation of tipping that took place under prior iterations of the program is of grave concern to Major League Baseball, as such behavior would constitute a serious breach of our agreement.”
Grave concern. I agree. That would look quite bad if the public found out you were tipping off select players. Very bad indeed. Oh no. The agreement. It has been breached!
*Spell check is putting that little red scwiggly line…damn it, it’s doing it again. Fine. So I horribly misspelled that word. There. squiggly…underneath the word blog. I guess MS Word doesn’t think blog is a word. Well, guess what dude. It is. Welcome to 2009.
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