Benz Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 Usually I stick to NESN for sports news, but I love this article from NBC Sports: A-Rod’s HR march is nothing but a fraudYankees slugger approaches 600 homers and we shouldn’t care one bit By Tim Dahlberg updated 3:14 a.m. ET, Thurs., July 22, 2010 Sometime over the next few games or perhaps the next few weeks, Alex Rodriguez will find a pitch he likes and make baseball history. His name will go up among the greats of the game. His accomplishment, though, will always stand alone. Yes, six others are already in the 600 home run club. But how about a big hand for the first admitted steroid user to take his place among the slugging elite? Yankee fans undoubtedly will give A-Rod just that when he becomes the youngest ever to reach the milestone. Remember, he was only juiced (or so he says) before he put on the pinstripes. Forgive me, though, if I don't stand up and cheer. Because we've all seen this act before. A magical mark. A tainted player. Another entry into the record books we can't believe. About the only thing missing is an immense, shaven head and the traveling circus that always seemed to surround it. Say what you will about Barry Bonds, he always made for good entertainment. There's nothing terribly entertaining about A-Rod reaching 600. It's a joyless occasion for all but the most blinded Yankee fans. The worst thing about it all is this: We're now forced to begin the long countdown to 763 that seems as inevitable as it will be uncomfortable. Having Bonds make a mockery of one of baseball's most sacrosanct records was bad enough. But at least with Bonds there was always a shred of deniability about steroids to hang onto even if the circumstantial evidence pointed to something else. With A-Rod, there is no guessing. He cheated and was forced to admit it. His numbers are as bogus as some of the muscles he grew with chemical help. His legacy is as tainted as any of his fellow sluggers in the steroid era. A-Fraud, indeed. The only question is how much of a fraud. Would he have reached 600 by the age of 35 without steroids? Hardly. Would he be on track to becoming the greatest home run hitter ever without juice? Not a chance. Even if you believe Rodriguez when he says he used steroids only when he was playing for the Texas Rangers, his march through the record books can't be seen as anything but illegitimate. The problem is there's no way to separate what was real from a very gifted player and what was supplemented by a very gifted chemist. A-Rod himself has not exactly been forthcoming about what he used and how long he used it. Outed by Sports Illustrated — which reported he tested positive for both Primobolan and testosterone — he attributed it to being young and naive and to a "loosey-goosey era" in baseball. At least he got the last part right. The same year he said he first began juicing Bonds hit a ridiculous 73 home runs for a Giants team that played half of its games in a pitcher-friendly ballpark, and no one was being tested for anything in baseball. Toss out the 156 home runs Rodriguez hit while admittedly juiced and we wouldn't even be having this conversation. He simply would be an aging slugger with declining numbers and no chance of topping the all-time home run list. Be more generous and throw out just some of them, and the climb to the top would at least be harder. A-Rod averaged 52 home runs a year in Texas and just 38 a year in his full seasons with Seattle and the Yankees, the case could be made that at least 42 of his home runs were hit with the aid of a needle. Count them as you like, the bottom line doesn't change. Home run No. 600 only means something to A-Rod and the guy peddling the ball he hits over the fence. That has to be grating on Rodriguez, who has always been so concerned with numbers that he probably stayed up late every night studying them. Even as he carefully carves out a new persona he has to wonder how No. 600 would have played out on the big New York stage had SI not outed him. "For me the whole thing as I approach 600 the thing I think about is the perspective of where I was when I hit 500. How things are different now," Rodriguez said Tuesday. "For me early on, I just thought it was about accumulating numbers." The only consolation for baseball fans is that those numbers seem to be getting harder and harder to accumulate. Rodriguez needed home runs in his last two at-bats of the 2009 season to avoid not hitting 30 home runs for the first time since 1997 and has just 15 home runs more than halfway through this season. In the end, though, maybe it doesn't matter at all. Is there really any difference having A-Rod as the all-time home run champion as opposed to Bonds topping the list? No, because the real home run leader is Hank Aaron. The real single season mark belongs to Roger Maris. Any home run records set during the "loosey-goosey era" simply don't count. Beautifully put. Could not have said it any better myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 what interesting timing...i'm gonna jack something from panch's adjacent Talk Soup thread: <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZgFhAK9FJo&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZgFhAK9FJo&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZgFhAK9FJo&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> seriously, are you prepared to say that no one on even the current Red Socks lineup has juiced, before making a paper champ of this guy? cause if not... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benz Posted July 25, 2010 Author Share Posted July 25, 2010 (things benny disagrees with) Yeah, unfortunately Big Papi hit the juice before I think it was '03. One year. The other difference? Big Papi's actually a nice guy. A-Fraud's the biggest asshole and drama queen on the planet. Seriously, his antics are childish at best. He's a tired out attention whore. Everyone else on the Red Sox line-up that I'm aware of is clean. Yep, A-Fraud's a paper chump for sure, o great defender of teams non-irish and horrid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The NZA Posted July 25, 2010 Share Posted July 25, 2010 heh. if A-Rod played for Boston, you'd love the dude, and celebrate his record. really though, i'm more poking fun at the anti-juice sentiment of the article (id put solid $ there's more on that roster on it than that), i mean its so commonplace it makes less sense to me than, say, hating the strong Irish history of NY because one decides that + loving boston must somehow be mutually exclusive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benz Posted July 25, 2010 Author Share Posted July 25, 2010 Nope. When players do stupid shit in Boston, they hear about it. A-Roid wouldn't have lasted long in Boston (He was almost a Red Sox but thankfully joined the team of jabronis instead where he fits in better.) Hell, even Randy Moss and Tom Brady have been booed before on bad plays and we LOVE them. Steroids have been commonplace, you're right, but it seems they're cracking down better on that, even now monitoring Minor League teams for performance enhancing drugs. If it's against the rules, it's against the rules. Yankees Baseball is bad enough without salary caps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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