Stealing Home? - Chris "Preach" Smith

A-Rod won.

I know there’s some of you who don’t want to hear or read this
simple truth that lies at the base of your emnity for the New York
Yankees third baseman. But it has to be recognized, and said. In
the wake of the outright Keystone Kops-like debacle that this past
Monday was for Major League Baseball in issuing suspensions for
the 12 players linked to the Biogenesis lab in Miami, Florida, Alex
Rodriguez won out. Think about it - we’ve long left behind any talk
of the other notable names like Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers
or Nelson Cruz of the Texas Rangers. A-Rod dominates the press,
as usual. And in his mind, as it should be. But you shouldn’t get
any more irate than you would if your wireless company was trying
to jack up your bill with hidden fees.

What, and who Alex Rodriguez is, is baseball’s embodiment of the
lesser known traits this country nurtures and covets. That is, how
to get over no matter the circumstances. Or as P.T. Barnum would
say, ‘There’s a sucker born every minute.’ Think of it: he gets to 
play for the Yankees until the end of this season while on appeal.
He would’ve been gone for 211 games, or until the beginning of 
the 2015 season. Trying to make a comeback like that has only
been done by Roy Hobbs in Bernard Malamud’s ‘The Natural’. He’d
be at the end of his career. So A-Rod gets paid, and can even snag
a bonus if he hits 12 more home runs to catch up to the great 
Willie Mays. He gets a huge amount of publicity, and since he 
welcomes any kind of press, he’ll run with it. Rodriguez is playing
his hand with cool, even if he’s looking like a stumblebum with
sloppy evasions of questions about his steroid usage with Biogenesis.
He makes a sucker out of the Yankees once again, and baseball.

It’s almost laughable how Bud Selig and Major League Baseball
has handled this affair. We knew A-Rod was on the hot seat since
January. It’s another example of baseball’s bad judgement when
it comes to steroids in the game. This was their growing problem
since the late 1990’s when they ignored the growth of performance
enhancing drugs, seeing only dollar signs after the strike year of
1994. But can you really be surprised? You have a sport that 
has dropped the ball on issues of player exploitation in Latin 
American nations & the decline in Black players as a result of the
aforementioned problem and other factors. A league that has 
had to resort to changing the integrity of the All-Star Game in
order to boost ratings and relevancy. Selig and other execs got
taken. Again. But A-Rod needs to send Ryan Braun some bubbly
because Braun’s previous steroid case that saw him beat the
system and make a scapegoat of the lab that collected his sample
helped this whole debacle to come about.


To the Yankees fans who are supremely outraged to the point of
hysterics? I say this as a fellow fan: you get what you pay for.
I still remember being in Los Angeles in 2004 for the NBA All
Star Weekend and getting the news that A-Rod was coming to
town. As much as it was exciting, it was also a bit ominous. The
former golden boy savior of baseball has brought one title to the
Bronx in 2009. Outside of gaudy season numbers, one has to ask
if if was worth it. This isn’t unfamiliar territory; former pinstriped
PED users Roger Clemens and Jason Giambi had their moments
of infamy. Yet they’ve managed to relatively move on. A-Rod
won’t be so lucky. Because I do believe him when he says that
baseball is his life. For someone who has slid in and out of relatable
personas like he has in romantic relationships (hi Cameron), this
game and his Hall of Fame numbers is what matters most. The
hubris attached to it though makes the cost that much more
agonizing to pay. He won’t see that yet. Maybe he’ll never see it.
Maybe he’ll wind up like Mark McGwire, still in baseball but off to
the side with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Still beloved, but tainted.
He could be like ol’ Charlie Hustle himself, shut out of the game
that gave him so much. Or he could wind up like Sammy Sosa,
a fellow Dominican slugger who’s gotten more press for bleaching
his skin in past years than anything else. The dog days left in 
this summer will show us if A-Rod can take any more heat.
For now, we have to accept that A-Rod didn’t steal home all
by himself.

He won, but his losses will come sooner than expected. Even for
him.