Typically when I write columns, I like to stick with stats to back up opinion. Seldom can you not find stats to back up opinions when it comes to sports or entertainment in general. But this, this is much more personal.
When I was a young Rivera, I fell in love with the game of baseball. The agility, the power, the speed, the skill, all came together to shape verses that formed beautiful poetry on the baseball diamond. Along with the beauty of the sport, one of the most glorious things for my eyes to behold at my young age was the interlocking N and Y of the New York Yankee logo. The pinstripes, the clean shaven faces and the baseball cathedral that is Yankee Stadium grew to be a haven for me, saving me from the stresses of girls with cooties and math worksheets. To this day, the cracks of the Yankee bats and the home pinstripes and away grays of the Bronx Bombers take me away to a stress-free mindset that I have yet to be able to duplicate in any other facet or activity in my life. The whirlwinds of issues and problems vanish upon the pop of the first pitch hitting the glove of the catcher.
On August 5, 2013, I'm sure Alex Rodriguez feels the same way.
In addition to bad knees and hips, Rodriguez is suffering a bruised ego after being told he will be forced to sit out the 2014 season. That's right, after about a month of speculation and nail-biting suspense, Major League Baseball handed A-Fraud - sorry, A-Roid - oops, A-Rod, a nice, robust 211 game suspension that will carry him through the end of the next season. Rodriguez, ever the fighter, ever the optimist (read as: egoist), is appealing the suspension in hopes to get it thrown out (fittingly, much like he is) to continue his fading, injury-plagued career. The baseball diamond tonight is his asylum. It's his place to get away from everything - if only for 27 outs, 9 innings, 1 game. A man that was once revered by many to be the greatest player of all time, the most talented player of all time, a man that was going to break every conceivable offensive record known to man, is, in his own words, "fighting for his [baseball] life." We finally saw a humanized A-Rod during his press conference on Monday evening, when his eyes turned glassy. What we saw was a broken man. A man that has nothing left to give or do but fight for what's left of his decimated career.
12 other players - 13 if you count the already suspended Ryan Braun - have accepted their suspensions at 50 games a piece (Braun for 65). A-Rod is planning to appeal, in which the results of the hearings won't come until well after the 2013 season is over, enabling A-Rod to play out the rest of the season. Some would say Rodriguez is being picked on. To that I say, for lack of a better and more eloquent phrase - bullsh*t! A-Rod has admitted before that he's taken Performance Enhancing Drugs from 2000-2003, and has been involved with shady figures in the medical field in the form of Anthony Galea. MLB's investigative arm linked 12 players, including Texas Ranger slugger Nelson Cruz and Detroit Tiger All-Star infielder Jhonny Peralta, to the Biogensis of America anti-aging clinic in Miami. Biogensis, already illegal with their practices, was handing out PEDs left and right, with Rodriguez even being accused as "recruiting" players to try this place. So, while some people take their talents to South Beach, other people find their talent there.
The reason why this is so personal to me, is that when I was growing up, when I was 10 or 11 years old, I watched in awe as A-Rod hit towering home runs at virtually every ballpark he was playing in. When I played backyard baseball, I wanted to be him. In my naivety, I didn't think A-Rod was juicing. I didn't think that when Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire took the country by storm in the summer of '98 with one swing at a time, they were loading themselves up with something more than Dominican food and McGwire's Androstenedione. I didn't know. I couldn't have known better. Then, BALCO happened. Then, Barry Bonds' forehead was used by the government to bounce radio signals into space. Then, Rafael Palmeiro wagged his finger at Congress (Period). Then, Roger Clemens was in Steinbrenner's Bawx (Thank you, Suzyn Waldman). They were all loading up the home runs as they were loading the syringes - sorry - ALLEGEDLY loading up the syringes and taking designer steroids such as the "Cream" and the "Clear". A-Rod was no different.
As I grew older, that player that I had idolized, the player that I pretended to be when I laced a frozen rope double between the light post and the rosebush in my backyard, was a phony. A fake. A cheater. The man has proven to be nothing more than a sanctimonious, lying, cheating, fraud. Plain and simple.
Still, the baseball romantic inside of me held out hope that it wasn't true. A-Rod? A juicer? No way. Has to be a mix-up. Then his cousin got involved. Then Katie Couric happened. Then Galea showed up. Then Biogensis. Then, today, the suspension.
I'd like to believe that this round of suspensions is the definitive end of what is now known as the Steroid Era in baseball. No more steroids. No more HGH. No more cheaters and frauds. But, as indicated by the lack of positive tests in the 12 players suspended today, who knows how many more are out there, still in their clubhouse bathrooms, poking themselves in the buttcheeks with needles.
In the 2011 film Moneyball based on the Michael Lewis book, Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) is quoted as saying, "How can you not get romantic about baseball?" At least we have guys like Mike Trout and Andrew McCutchen that show that those naturally talented players still exist. Hopefully Chris Davis' 2013 season isn't A.) a fluke and B.) steroid induced so we can continue watch him hit moonshots for the next 15 years. Guys like Yasiel Puig and Bryce Harper are playing with nothing but hustle and heart, with loads of potential and talent that are here to play hard and entertain. Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera are continuing their Hall of Fame careers, with Rivera until the end of this season. So how can you NOT get romantic about baseball?
Well, the day any one of those guys fail a drug test, you'll find the answer to that question.
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