There has been a lot of reaction around baseball today as the news that New York Yankees third basemen Alex Rodriguez allegedly failed a drug test in 2003 hit the airwaves.
It should be known that Rodriguez failed a test in 2003, before Major League Baseball had its new steroid policy in place.
The Lineup included such alleged juicers as Juan Gonzalez, Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez, Rafael Palmeiro and Alex Rodriguez.
Also on the Ranger’s 2003 roster of dysfunction:
Ugueth Urbina was the closer of that team. Although Urbina has never been accused of juicing that I know of, he is currently sitting in a Venezuelan prison for attempted murder.
Urbina, allegedly, attacked five farm workers on his residence with a machete and poured gasoline on them in 2005.
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Here’s what Alex Rodriguez told reporters after admitting his use of performance-enhancing drugs from 2001-2003:
“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 …”
Maybe it didn’t occur to him — maybe it wouldn’t have occurred to any of us making $25 million a year for 10 — but if A-Rod was so worried about the pressure the money brought him when he moved to Texas from Seattle, why didn’t he give some of it back? Was it (is it?) more important to him than his health, his integrity, his legacy?
Yes, he was young and — his word — stupid when he took, but if he was able back then to link the money to the pressure, he should have asked himself, “Do I need all that money to play baseball?”
Doesn’t he know how lucky he is?
Say what you want about Pete Rose, but it was never all that hard to believe him when he’d say he’d play for free, that “I’d run through hell in a gasolne suit to play baseball.”
Wouldn’t any of us?
The climate is much different for a player than when Rose broke in. First of all with A-Rod you have the money hungry Scott Boras calling most of the shots. Imagine being a highly prized 18 year old prospect with an agent like Boras in your ear.
While we’re blaming baseball’s powers that be and the players for the steroid era, let’s not forget to blame the media, and ourselves. We joined baseball in looking the other way for a long time.
For me, all this SI National Enquirer malarky about who did what 6 or 15 years ago is a sad joke. How ’bout we get out of the past and get into today by putting aside our obsession to trash every overpaid player who juiced and simply hold baseball responsible for hard nosed research and testing starting NOW.
let’s not forget our favorite former texas ranger—-the newly shrunken travis hafner!