It’s always something in Yankeeland. Just when I thought the Yankees might have a quiet day for change, Squawker Jon called me to see if I had heard the big news about Alex Rodriguez. According to a Sports Illustrated report by Selena Roberts and David Epstein, A-Rod tested positive for two anabolic steroids in 2003, back when he won his first MVP. SI says:
Rodriguez’s name appears on a list of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball’s ’03 survey testing, SI’s sources say. As part of a joint agreement with the MLB Players Association, the testing was conducted to determine if it was necessary to impose mandatory random drug testing across the major leagues in 2004.
I would have thought that the derogatory nickname for Alex this year would be A-Fraud. Now I’m guessing it will be A-Roid!
If this report is true, I’m pretty angry about A-Rod taking performance-enhancing drugs. I can never be surprised about such things in this day and age, but I am disappointed.
A-Rod hasn’t denied the SI allegations:
When approached by an SI reporter on Thursday at a gym in Miami, Rodriguez declined to discuss his 2003 test results. “You’ll have to talk to the union,” said Rodriguez, the Yankees’ third baseman since his trade to New York in February 2004. When asked if there was an explanation for his positive test, he said, “I’m not saying anything.”
So if this report is accurate, it really hurts Alex’s legacy. I don’t care whether it was an anonymous test, or that steroids were not technically banned in baseball back then. The main thing A-Rod had going for him was the perception that he achieved all of his records cleanly, and that he would one day be the drug-free all-time home run record holder. Now he really is A-Fraud.
Sadly, it appears that I’m going to have to put Alex in the same category as Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds – already-great players who repeatedly denied using performance-enhancing drugs, were caught doing so, and who have forever tainted their names.
And unlike Clemens and Bonds, who were approaching the end of the careers when the steroid allegations first surfaced about them, the Yanks are still on the hook for another nine years, and $270 million or so, with Alex. Lovely.
Will A-Rod’s legacy recover from this? I don’t think so. Jason Giambi survived because he has a great personality, and because he was candid and remorseful, as far as these things go. Andy Pettitte was also remorseful and fairly candid, and he also had over a decade of goodwill among Yankee fans to draw from. A-Rod? Not so much.
Selena Roberts, co-author of this SI article, is currently writing a book on A-Rod, to be released later this year. I’m guessing that this will be the biggest Bomber-related bestseller since “The Yankee Years”! I’m also figuring that Jose Canseco, who alleged in his book “Vindicated” that A-Rod was really A-Roid, is feeling, well, vindicated!
I’m sure I will be squawking about A-Rod in the next few days, but in the meantime, what do you think? Leave us a comment!
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