A-Rod Bumps Phelps from Headlines
Michael Phelps has been mercilessly pounded in the press for being photographed smoking marijuana. It is a slow time for sport’s news at the moment so ESPN ,and anyone else who needs to report on sports whether or not there is anything going on, have overblown this story. If you listened to some of the shows on ESPN and had not heard what Phelps had done you would have thought he had committed a double murder like OJ, allegedly, had done. Phelps is a twenty three year old superstar who has been training for years and is finally able to reap the rewards of his hard work. If you were twenty three and in his situation you would also be travelling, chasing women and partying non-stop. Anyone who makes a big deal really needs a reality check.
Phelps may finally get a break from the media scrutiny as a much bigger story broke today about Alex Rodriquez testing positive for anabolic steroids on two ocassions in 2003, a year in which he won the most valuable player award. No one should be surprised by this. I think Shysterball said it best today.
It was always silly to play the “this guy was juicing, this guy was not” game, but now it is downright absurd, because anyone who comes out now and says that they thought A-Rod was doing steroids is lying. Well, except for Jose Canseco, who I once again must note has a better track record for accuracy on this subject than anyone. How nice it would have been if he wasn’t such a scumbag with respect to everything else.
Baseball wanted to move on after the steroids scandals and many people said Canseco was broke, desperate and had an axe to grind when it came to Alex Rodriquez. Sure most of what he said in the first book was true, but he must be lying now. The media continued to mention how when Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols broke the home run record of Barry Bonds it would be great because someone clean would have the record again. As Shysterball said that sort of thinking was silly as we never really knew for sure who was using steroids. For good or ill when they eventually release all of the details of the 104 players who tested positive for steroids during the supposedly anonymous tests, we will have a more complete picture of who did use steroids, but let us not pretend that we know everyone who did or did not use steroids or performance enhancing drugs.
Alex Rodriguez was one of many who used performance enhancing drugs, but he will be the new pariah in baseball. I am a Red Sox fan, but even I believe that he has received a lot of criticism that is undeserved. Sure he seems overly sensitive and he has not been great in the post season lately, but he has had a hall of fame career and despite what Joe Torre or legions of Yankee fans might think, he has always been a far better player than Derek Jeter. The more we learn the more it seems clear that the use of performance enhancing drugs was as common in baseball as tax evasion is for prospective cabinet members. As disappointing as it might be that one of the best players in the history of baseball used steroids, we should be aware that many of the other great players of the past twenty years did as well and A-Rod was better than all of them. Yeah that does not really make me feel better about it either.
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