Don’t Kid Yourself: A-Rod, 600, and History

When the Yankees stormed across the trade deadline, suddenly with Kerry Wood, Austin Kearns, and Lance Berkman hog tied to their war machine, it was because they believed that these skilled players nestled deep within their respective losing environments would flourish in the legendary pinstripes of Bronx Bomber-dom.

Berkman especially blossomed, going 2-for-22 and banking a line drive off Alex Rodriguez’s shin during batting practice.  As far as Yankee debuts go, he landed somewhere between David Justice and Dandy, the dumb-faced beardo.

Yet, in a media outpouring that surprised no one, there was a more intense focus on one of A-Rod’s body parts than on the member of his team who had possibly injured it.  Joe Girardi immediately snatched his poor third baseman out of the lineup just in case that nasty injury–the one that had him “writhing” on the field in pain–was more serious than any other BP mishap in the history of Major League Baseball.

“He always acts like that when he gets hit,” Derek Jeter explained.

So for starters, we can see that he’s a pretty easy guy to respect.

Now all he needs is a record to chase after and we’ll have ourselves yet another magical summer of tainted baseball history in the steroid era.

With his 600th home run, A-Rod now sits amongst the names of baseball legends and mythical heroes, men whose vices didn’t come in a needle or pill, they came in a glass or a dress with a suggestively long zipper.  He’s up on Olympus with the rest of the gods.  He’s 600 home runs better than Lance Berkman in a Yankees uniform.

But let’s take a journey back to the winter of 2007, when Alex was informing us that he never took steroids or any performance enhancing drugs.  “Bud Selig and Major League Baseball have done a fine job of implementing some very strict rules,” A-Rod added with that smarmy charm we’ve all come to know and be disgusted by.

It was not until over two years later that A-Rod popped up again in the steroid issue, this time using the “I was just kidding that time,” defense.  He used steroids.   And now his home runs didn’t seem all that impressive.

Are we supposed to assume that A-Rod wouldn’t have hit more home runs in his career?  Oh, he probably would have.  Its not like there’s a drug out there that turns scrawny, talentless hacks into Hall of Famers.  Natural talent is usually the first step in drug abuse as players just try to keep pace with all the other guys who are headed down that road already.

In fact, there are some out there who argue steroids don’t really affect the game at all.  Baseball analyst Eric Walker took to the numbers and presents a meaningful argument… not in defense of the steroids… but certainly in defense of their users through research.  He argues the muscles most beneficial from steroids aren’t the muscles used in the swing of a baseball bat.  That differences in the baseball itself are responsible for the home run spike (An MLB-backed study at the University of Massachusetts debunks this).  That the health risks and bad examples set for the youth don’t exist.

But honestly, I don’t care about A-Rod’s health.  Whether his cheating was effectual or not, when he was doing it, he was keeping it under wraps, and doing it because he assumed it would give him a leg-up in the game he played.  If he thought what he was doing was wrong, and that it went against the game, and he still did it, that’s still cheating, and it’s still A-Rod.

Obviously, being of anti-Yank sentiment, I’m looking for any reason to dispel the achievement.  I’m glad that some objective parties are saying it is tainted, that Yankees fans themselves may admit they don’t really even like A-Rod that much.  Fans like me need this because it is a great excuse to ignore and/or insult what would otherwise be a 30-minute standing ovation.  If Jeter did it, we’d have nothing to say.

Also, A-Rod’s a liar.  And he’s got no qualms with lying to the media, the fans, and himself, if it spares him the embarrassment of flash bulbs and fast paced questions… or however they actually do journalism these days.  So while you could argue his skill even without steroids is enough to garner him respect, or that his skill with them wasn’t even affected, you could easily counter with the fact that with A-Rod, we’ll never really know what is a genuine thought, what is a line fed to him by his agent or the Yankees PR department, and what is an utter fabrication, when it comes to steroids, or anything.

His record is still painted the wrong color, otherwise we wouldn’t be having these conversations.  Buster Olney wouldn’t be insinuating Rodriguez shouldn’t get the Hall of Fame and Jeff Fletcher wouldn’t have to argue that he should.

Last night, ESPN interviewed the New York third baseman just prior to the Yankees-Sox game.  He spoke about his work ethic.  He spoke about “the kids.”  He spoke about The Other Guys, starring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, in theaters now.

ESPN, showcasing its usual blistering inquiries when it comes to an intense debate, had Bobby Valentine sit next to him.  Like a father to his kid, Bobby explained that 7th place in the spelling bee was just fine, even though A-Rod had most of the words written on his hand.  It was the most skin-crawling line of questioning since they asked Lebron James if he bites his nails… on live TV!

Yeah, even with his performance enhancing friends, 600 is a lot of home runs.  And he did it fast. We can’t blame him for ESPN kissing his toes.  We can’t take away from Hall of Fame status just because he’s a tactless idiot (didn’t Ty Cobb beat a man to death once?).  But you will never, ever, hear about this record in the future, without “performance enhancing drugs” entering the conversation, even if he is trying to hide behind his “work ethic” and a couple of rows of kids.

And that’s sort of the definition of “tarnished.”

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