Alex Rodriguez Tarnishes Legacy With Further PED Suspicions

Oct 16, 2012; Detroit, MI, USA; New York Yankees infielder Alex Rodriguez gestures before game three of the 2012 ALCS against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: William Perlman/THE STAR-LEDGER via USA TODAY Sports

Alex Rodriguez, the New York Yankees enigmatic third baseman, finds himself embroiled in another performance enhancing drug controversy, the most recent being the second substantial ordeal of his career. The first came in 2009, when Rodriguez publicly admitted to using PEDs for a three year period, beginning in 2001. The second came yesterday, when Rodriguez was named in a report by the Miami New Times linking banned substances and many MLB players. Long lauded as a paragon of truth and righteousness by fans and media members alike, this second PED scandal may prove strong enough to forever tarnish the previously pristine historical legacy of the slugging Adonis.

All across the expanse of the baseballing nation, scribes of the sport have begun to reckon with the reality of Alex Rodriguez: Fallen Hero. From CBS Sports, Danny Knobler is quite clearly struggling mightily to nurse a profoundly broken heart. To whom will Knobler’s children now submit their faith? What are we without our shining stars? Are we anything at all?

ESPN’s Ian O’Connor is faced with a similar quandary. Long one of the most vocal and public admires of Rodriguez’s prodigious baseball talents, work ethic, and integrity, how is O’Connor to move on? What sort of dishonor has he brought upon his station as sports journalist if he could be so gullible, the wool pulled over his eyes so easily? O’Connor was naive enough to believe in the innocent myth of baseball, that grown men could play a children’s game and stand for something more, something greater. He is left now with nothing but the devastated remains of his champion’s reputation—once clean, now soiled.

Ken Rosenthal was witnessed in the center of a busy thoroughfare on fallen knee, wailing towards the Heavens. Jon Heyman has not moved from his bed, or blinked, in over 36 hours.

Pray for these men, the pure of heart, the men who dared to dream. For they have been betrayed. We all have. The only solace we are left with, now, in this dark time, is the knowledge that we will recover, but Alex Rodriguez’s legacy will not. Time will heal our wounds, mend our souls, but Rodriguez will remain marked, scarred by his previous deception and now reported involvement in further malfeasance. Alex Rodriguez has made his bed, sort of, maybe all the way, and now he must lie in it. His frayed and tattered remnants of honor that remain will not be enough to keep him warm.

Kyle writes baseball nonsense at The Trance of Waiting. You can follow him on Twitter @AgainstKyle.