So the cat is out of the bag. Alex Rodriguez tested positive for performance enhancing drugs in 2003. The man chosen to lead the game into the post-steroids era, taking back the career home run record from the menace to baseball society that is Barry Bonds, has shown himself to be more of a boy. Rodriguez, immature and perhaps simply arrogant, disrespected himself and his profession by taking testosterone knowing full well he would be tested, albeit anonymously. After hearing this, I was just about ready to run with the same reaction that pointed to ARod as a savior, looking instead to Albert Pujols to return the game to a position of integrity, when I paused and gave it more thought.
It is just a game, people. Let me repeat that. It is just a game. Rodriguez signed a $275 million dollar contract and then directed reporters to talk to the MLB Players Association when they asked about the steroid accusations. Sure, MLBPA certainly owes him for the ridiculous salary increases his record-breaking contract has helped peers receive. But somewhere between the stories of how baseball’s innocence has been traded for dollars and cents and the water cooler conversations of who else is juicing for profit, we all lose sight of something. Baseball is a game. Major League Baseball, on the other hand, is a business. Remember this - baseball players also include kids in the local park, high schoolers touring their home state on traveling teams, college students taking a break from class to swing aluminum bats, and minor leaguers who may dream of big paydays, but still get to play a game they love day in and day out.
Baseball is just a game. But it is our game. So don’t look to Albert Pujols to return it to its former glory, let’s look to ourselves. Pick up a glove and play catch with your kid. Go watch The Natural and feel like a kid yourself. Join a softball league and remember what it feels like to stretch a single into a double. Talk to peers around the water cooler about why the slider is such a great complement to a good fastball.
Baseball is our game. And it’s time we take it back.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
A-ROIDS, did the correct thing — he came out into the open and admitted it.
Excellent story. I, too, love baseball for the sake of baseball, and I love my Brewers but the business side of baseball saddens me a lot. I know it’s necessary, but that’s not what it is about.
I disagree with Jeff, though, that A-Rod did the right thing. He just became the latest in a long line of deniers who, after getting caught, admitted to doing exactly what he was caught doing during exactly the time period he was caught for and nothing more.