A-Fraud

Good morning, I know that it's been over a week since the last time I blogged here, but I was pretty busy last week with school so I wasn't able to. I'll try to post again on here later this week, probably on Thursday afternoon/evening.

I know that I am a little late on writing about this whole Alex Rodriguez steroid scandal, but last week I was just so upset about the stimulus package that I had to vent about that first. However, this new scandal involving Alex Rodriguez is an issue that bugs me more than any other news story that has broke in the last few years.

In September 2006 when Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's career home run record of 755 home runs, almost everyone following baseball knew that Bonds was taking some sort of performance enhancing substance. To many fans, including myself, Bonds' "historical" chase of Aaron in the record books was a mockery of the game. Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, and even Willie Mays, Bonds' godfather, who all trail Bonds respectively in career home runs had to work hard and rely pretty much solely on their god-given talent to hit as many home runs as they did. For Bonds to pass all of them on the home run list is a slap in the face to them, and all the "clean" players that came before Bonds.

However, when Bonds broke the record I knew that eventually karma would work its way around. At the end of that same 2006 season Alex Rodriguez had 464 career homeruns at age 30, on pace to break Barry Bonds' record. I knew that although baseball had been nationally embarassed by the Bonds sham, it was only a matter of time before baseball was redeemed by Alex Rodriguez. Many fans believed that he was the golden child that would help everyone forget about Bonds and the whole steroid era. In a time when it was rumored that more than 50% of MLB players were on the "juice" A-rod was the golden child who would surpass everyone, and do it clean.

Then a few weeks ago a story was broke by two Sports Illustrated writers claiming that MLB had a list of 104 players that tested positive for steroids and Rodriguez's name was on the list. It was only a matter of days before Rodriguez was interviewed by ESPN's Peter Gammons and admitted to using steroids in 2001-2003, the three years that he was on the Texas Rangers.

I really hope it was worth it for Rodriguez, because I do not think that even he knows the damage that he has done. I have talked to several people about this, and it seems that we have all come to a general consensus, we can no longer trust athletes, at least baseball players. Rodriguez's choice to cheat and use steroids was one of the most selfish acts possible. Either he did not know, or did not care, that he was bigger than just one baseball player. To many fans, he was supposed to be the savior of baseball, the one that would remind us of all that is good about the game.

Although we are nowhere near done with Alex Rodriguez's scandal, and the baseball steroid scandal as a whole, I can say almost assuredly that I have lost a GREAT amount of trust in the game and it will be a long time before that trust is won back. This year will not be the same as years before. Spring training is just around the corner and I am nowhere near as excited as I have been in the past, and I know when I go to my first baseball game of the season nothing will be the same. Baseball used to be more than a sport to me. It represented so much more, and now its innocence has been taken away. The sounds and feel of the ballpark will not be the same, every ball cracked off the bat will not sound the same knowing that the player that hit it, or even the pitcher that pitched the ball, is most likely coming off the juice. Congratulations Alex Rodriguez, you ruined one of the few things that was still pure in the world. I hope you are happy.

Over and Out,
MB