by Matt Hevia

The don of douchebaggery, the Mickey Mantle of morons, the sultan of steroids, ladies and gentlemen:  A-Rod. The man many have deemed baseball’s best player has admitted to doing steroids in an interview with ESPN’s Peter Gammons and, strangely, I couldn’t care less. I was more concerned with the fact that I’ve never seen someone look so orange on television, and I live on the south shore of Long Island, the home of fake tanning and fist pumping. Alex Rodriguez is the man that decided to smack the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s hand in the 2004 ALCS, as the Yankees’ season was crumbling. He is the man that screamed while rounding third in an attempt to underhandedly force his opponent to commit an error. And, pardon me for sounding shallow, but this is also the man that is a fucking top-of-the-line third basemen, he could have any girl on the planet, and married a woman that looked like a coked-up back-up dancer for J. Lo. Then, on the rebound, he bagged Madonna about twenty years too late. His choice of women resembles his play in the post-season: shitty.  If you are going to be a complete dickhead, do it 100%, go all the way, and date Paris Hilton.  After re-hashing Mr. Rod’s history of poor and tasteless decisions, I ask, should it surprise a single person that this guy was capable of taking steroids? 

Rodriguez played for the Texas Rangers from 2001-2003, signing the largest deal in Major League Baseball History. He was to rake in 252 million dollars over ten years.  Rodriguez cited the enormity of this deal, and the pressure to perform consistently, as the reason he began taking steroids. During those three seasons he went on to hit 156 home runs, drove in over a hundred runs in each of those years, and won an MVP award in ‘03. The numbers were there, he was earning his money (although no one deserves that much money, ever), and the Rangers routinely sucked (they refuse to get pitching, I don’t get it). In 2004, he was traded to the Yankees and, apparently, had an epiphany, discontinuing his use of steroids. Oddly enough, in four seasons with the Yankees, thus far, his numbers haven’t dipped very much, if at all.  On top of that, he had the best overall season of his career in 2007, driving in 156 runs, with an OPS of 1.067.  That’s insane.

 Now, I’m sure you, the reader, are sitting over there going, “Okay, so where is this going?” Well, I have an answer for you my friends: it’s not really going anywhere, because it’s a non-story. He didn’t turn into a cartoon-like hulk of a man, his stats didn’t thrive or suffer and he’s always been a tremendously large jerk-off. So, other than the additional stain that it will leave on his already filthy character, it won’t fully satisfy everyone’s urge to see him brutally punished.  Knowing that he cheated isn’t a surprise, and knowing that it happened before there were any repercussions almost makes it pointless to talk about. Alex Rodriguez cannot lose money over this, his contract is still valid and he’s even gained respect back from people already for coming clean and acting like a bewildered puppy on ESPN. Maybe fans will throw syringes at him, or hold up signs that say “A-Roid” or “Ster-rod” and I relish the opportunity to use this incident as additional ammo, but fans tormented him already anyway. If Alex Rodriguez takes steroids consistently in order to prolong his career and assist in breaking records, then it will be time to give this issue major attention. Those are among the reasons why people have been justifiably outraged over Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds taking steroids, but A-Rod is not in that class yet. Currently this only matters because A-Rod is a huge name, and a huge attention whore. Now he has all the attention he could ever ask for.  Keep in mind that if this were Robinson Cancel that admitted three-year steroid use, people would forget before ESPN was done reporting it.

Although I hate A-Rod, much like the rest of America, I will not place blame on him for one thing, and that’s the fact that all of this was exposed. The MLB Players Association was supposed to destroy all steroid tests submitted to them in 2003, prior to when there was a punishment for taking performance-enhancing drugs. Not only did they still have Rodriguez’s steroid test, but they also have knowledge of one hundred and three other players that tested positive, but only named A-Rod. Clearly, it isn’t fair. All the players should be named, and be made to conduct a mass apology so that we can all move on. All this does is strengthen my case though, showing that the only reason this matters now is because A-Rod has been a shining ray of retard illuminating the mentally challenged sea, and thus, he is a target.

The only fun part of this story was watching this guy talk with Peter Gammons. Most of the time, he just kept reiterating the fact that he was stupid, but there is one quote that just about sums up the entire interview. When asked by Gammons about what substances he took, Rodriguez responded: “Peter, that’s the thing. Again, it was such a loosey-goosey era. I’m guilty for a lot of things. I’m guilty for being negligent, naive, not asking all the right questions. And to be quite honest, I don’t know exactly what substance I was guilty of using.” Okay, let’s all take a five-minute break and try to replenish some of our brain cells. Holy hell, he called the steroid era “loosey goosey.” And quite honestly, since he doesn’t know what substance he took, who says it had to be steroids? It was probably Flintstone vitamins. I totally believe him though, because I’m a young guy and I know when I want to perform better in Wii bowling, I usually just have people hand me any shit they can find and I ingest it: tampons, napkins, brillo pads, whatever works. I watched this entire interview and, after he said loosey-goosey, my brain shifted gears, and I had A-Rod tell the story of how he got involved with steroids in my own mind. It went something like this: “So you know, I’m just playing a game of Twister with Mark (Teixeira), we’re waiting to play the White Sox or something. Nasty rain delay, and so Chan Ho is working the spinner. We don’t let him play because he’s Asian (silence)… and so he says, “right hand red.” Turns out, there was a needle full of steroids sticking out of the red dot closest to my right hand, but what was I supposed to do, leave Tex hanging? So I put my hand down and continued the game. That’s the kind of teammate I am. So, yeah, that’s how it started, kind of…it was just…loosey-goosey I guess.”

 So, in conclusion, if you have gained nothing else from reading this, you are at least now aware that loosey-goosey isn’t an acceptable word to use during an interview about you contributing to the demise of baseball, and that the Texas Rangers refuse to address their lackluster pitching.  

Tags: sports a-rod orange guys texas rangers pitching staff
February 12, 2009 at 2:21pm ∞