And we thought the Clemens stuff was interesting last year. Unless you have been under roid-rage since Friday, it was revealed that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in the 2003 "survey" testing. On Monday in an interview with ESPN's Peter Gammons A-Rod admitted to taking it from 2001-2003.
What's interesting is that this is not the most shocking part, IMHO. It's his accusations against Selena Roberts. Stalking him in NY and Miami? This makes Joe Torre's Single White Female accusations seem plausible, if you didn't believe it last week. Wait, Torre doesn't know SWF. I'm confused. Are there police reports of this? Certainly the part about Roberts attempted break-in while his children were sleeping warranted a call to the authorities?
As to the PED's, A-Rod also notes that he's not sure what he took. Excuse me? From Jose Canseco and his band of "Roiders", we learn that it's best to ask your friend and teammate to inject you in the ass when you need a fix. Now we learn from A-Rod that you just get the stuff, not knowing what it is, and take it. Cyanide pill please?
OK, aside from this shocking revelation, at least he came clean unlike Mark "The Past" McGwire, Sammy "No Hablo Ingles" Sosa, and Roger "Rocket has a totally different meaning" Clemens. Maybe he'll get into the Hall of Fame. Because we have also learned from Pete Rose that lying to the baseball public is the worst sin possible.
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What this really shows is how bad the (steroid) culture was in MLB and how under the watchful eye of MLB Executives - let it go unchecked for so long.
A-Rod had great stats in a league driven by stats so that any one player from any era can be compared to another era. He didn't even need player enhancing drugs and the culture was so bad that he felt he needed to become super human. It's not as much a defense of his actions, but more a reflection that if a someone already performing at baseball's highest levels (cleanly) feels he needs a lift than what could every other player be thinking given the same culture and environment?
Good point. A-Rod noted that he did it to "live up" to the contract he got from the Rangers. Here's the interesting reverse scenario. In every sport we love the underdog, the comeback player, the 10th-man off the bench. So let's say he didn't take PED's. His contract is a bust. Would the Yankees have acquired him? If so, wouldn't he be a big superstar now anyways since he'd be a clean MVP that never took PED's. Now we reflect on his Yankee years in a different light. Without PED's he'd be Kurt Warner or Drew Brees. Comeback players.