Alex Rodriguez and Baseball’s Ever Shifting Moral Center
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And you thought the only thing I talked about here was Teen Wolf! It’s been a while since I’ve addressed anything to do with sports on the blog, but I have so much time on my hands these days I figured it’d be fun to go back to that well. Since I’ve moved to LA I have been able to catch up on baseball, thanks to Time Warner’s great selection of channels (one of these days I’ll tell yall about the bullshit they pull in Texas). Of course this coincided with Alex Rodriguez’ return to the Yankees and no matter which of the 5 million ESPNs there are or Fox, you can’t escape the conversation. I mean ESPN broke from it’s Wednesday Night Baseball feed just to show us ARod’s at bats, as if we’d see him juicing on TV. This crazy coverage and the fallout from the biogenesis clinic have me pondering some things reagrding MLB.
Full disclosure, I’m a Yankees and Giants fan. Rooting for these two franchises and growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area means that through firsthand experiences, I may not have the popular views with regards to PEDs. In fact, I’m sure I don’t. I find the conversation regarding PEDs incredibly reductive and judging anyone’s past based on present rules is quite foolish. I am not one of those people who believes that just because someone is taking steroids mean their suddenly the best player ever. Yes they do allow you to recover faster and enhance performance a bit. So do amphetamines (which just got banned a few years ago). And don’t even get me started on cortisone. It just seems because baseball is such a numbers game that MLB and Bud Selig have gone out of its way to persecute people for steroid use and on that path has lost focus of the real issue.
Which is what brings me to one Alex Rodriguez who is currently appealing a 211 game suspension. As much as ARod brought this on himself (and Lord knows he did), I cannot help but feel like the ire MLB is throwing at him and the coverage is nothing but pettiness at best. MLB and it’s players union approved a drug policy a few years ago which outlines the following suspensions: 50 for 1st time offense, 100 for second and a lifetime ban for the third. Now knowing that, please tell me where exactly you see cause or need for a 211 game suspension? Like what is the point of rules if you are just going to bend them because you are mad at someone? It’s why I’m not mad that he’s appealing the suspension even if he accepts the 100 game ban further down the line because this just reeks of a body being petty.
What is so interesting to me about this whole biogenesis deal is that MLB in order to get this information gave the clinic founder “assurances that the sport would drop a lawsuit against him, indemnify him for any liability arising from his cooperation, provide personal security and offer assistance with any law-enforcement agents that might bring charges against him.” So let me get this straight, this man who is providing your employees bad things is now free to two step down the street because he helped you? How is that ok to treat the players like criminals and not their supplier? It’s mind boggling that they have gone so far down the rabbit hole in their quest to rid the sport that they are gonna let a criminal go just to punish the players in the league. How is that acting in the sport’s best interest? Although I shouldn’t be surprised given that most of their prosecution of players starts with leaked documents like the Mitchell Report of the Balco files.
Which brings me finally to that worldwide leader in sports ESPN. You will not find a more lively hypocritical bunch than this network. For all of their posturing and preening regarding this scandal, their coverage belies the fact that they are feeding off this just like baseball is. The aforementioned showing of A-Rod’s at bats, Curt Schilling’s commentary (on anything frankly) and just the whole air they are carrying about this is wrong. If you don’t like what he did, say it and if you don’t want to talk about it as Rick Sutcliffe mentioned several times on last Wednesday’s telecast then don’t mention it! I am totally ok with networks wanting the ratings, and ESPN didn’t get to be a juggernaut for nothing. I just can’t help but feel like they are helping to feed into this toxic discourse surrounding PEDs which is fueling MLB’s fire to take the wrong course of action. Have you ever once heard them calling for owners to give back that revenue they got off those “false” records? Hell Barry Bonds paid for AT&T Park by himself, but I’ont see Brian Sabean and his boys rushing to get rid of that money or his impact.
All in all, the PED issue will probably never go away, but I do think that it will quiet down. However, I think MLB and its affiliates need to take a long hard look at just how they are going to address this issue going further.
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