There's been a great deal of noise since the news broke that arguably the greatest player in baseball, Yankees stud third baseman Alex Rodriguez had failed a steroids test in 2003, a charge which he openly confessed to in an interview with ESPN's Peter Gammons yesterday.
My reaction is this: Is anyone really surprised by any of this?
Am I disappointed? Sure I am. I'm a Yankees fan and I had held out hope that the fact that A-Rod's body type didn't seem to have changed a great deal since his days with the Mariners attested to his "all natural" physique. But given that so many other major home run hitters and power pitchers have been implicated in taking performance-enhancing drugs, none of this is surprising.
We've had defiant and articulate superstars like Rafael Palmeiro, nice guys like Mark McGwire, devout Christians like Andy Pettitte, and speedy smaller guys like Alex Sanchez. There is nobody in Major League Baseball who would surprise me if I were to find out they were caught taking either steroids or human-growth hormone. Perhaps that it's a sad commentary that my expectations have become so low, but such is the result of constant and pervasive revelations. Albert Pujols, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Lance Berkman, Ryan Howard, and even the guy who is continuously held up as the quintessential "respect the game" player, Derek Jeter - allegations around any of these guys wouldn't make me blink.
Looking forward, Major League Baseball has to find a way to move forward from this. The biggest star from the most famous team just got outed. It's time to use this as an opportunity to ventilate the stink of not just A-Rod's sins, but everyone else who has been abusing performance-enhancing drugs. Wipe the slate clean, get everyone on a fair playing field (i.e. drug free) and move on.
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