I really don’t have much to say about Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod). I do know that he might be the most talented baseball player in a generation. I also know that he sucked the life and money out of the Texas Rangers. A-Rod has been suspended from Major League Baseball for a year. He will be 39 years old when he is able to return to the big leagues. I think this all would have been different had everyone loved A-Rod. Unfortunately for him, he simply is a great player with a huge ego problem.
From ESPN:
The game is over now, and at least Alex Rodriguez can say he did not go down looking. He did not leave the bat on his shoulder. He raged against the case baseball made against him with such purpose, going all-in emotionally and financially, that he deserved to have some 9-year-old kid tell him, “Good job, good effort.”
But trying wasn’t enough for Rodriguez here, not even close. He had to find a way to win. And Saturday, when arbitrator Fredric Horowitz took 49 games off Rodriguez’s 211-game suspension for the slugger’s sins in the Biogenesis scandal, Rodriguez did not win.
He got destroyed. In fact, he was the first team eliminated on an NFL playoff day.
“It’s a giant, giant victory for baseball,” one source close to the situation said of the downsized, 2014-season and postseason ban. “To get a full season from a superstar player? Are you kidding me? Baseball only went for 211 because they knew there would probably be a reduction.”
Remember the 50-game bans handed to the Biogenesis dirty dozen, the lower-profile cheats? Horowitz basically subtracted that entire sentence from A-Rod’s penalty, and still benched him for nearly 100 games more than Ryan Braun.
Manny Ramirez got 100 for his own multiple performance-enhancing misdeeds. In a different sport for different offenses, violent offenses, Ron Artest (86 games) and Latrell Sprewell (68) got fewer games combined than A-Rod gets for a non-violent assault on his sport here.
“The number of games sadly comes as no surprise, as the deck has been stacked against me from day one,” Rodriguez said in a statement. “This is one man’s decision, that was not put before a fair and impartial jury, does not involve me having failed a single drug test, is at odds with the facts and is inconsistent with the terms of the Joint Drug Agreement and the Basic Agreement, and relies on testimony and documents that would never have been allowed in any court in the United States because they are false and wholly unreliable. (more…)
It is time that MLB got serious about performance enhancing drugs. Yes or No. No wink and a nod. Is it legal in the sport? If so, then everyone dope up. If not, then players need more than a slap on the wrist. The reward for just a slight increase in performance is huge. If you can go from hitting .275 to .300, that’s huge. The money difference is huge. MLB seems to be serious and is finally cracking down (note: Barry Bonds isn’t in the Hall of Fame for the second straight year).
