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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cactus Jack who wrote (160149)	2/9/2009 7:06:12 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 362604

Facing Up to Some Truth Is a Start for Rodriguez _______________________________________________________________ By GEORGE VECSEY The New York Times February 9, 2009 Minus the tissue box, but with visible emotion, Alex Rodriguez admitted Monday to taking an illegal drug from 2001 through 2003. The world did not end. Major League Baseball will continue to sell tickets. And Rodriguez will put on his uniform in a week or so and begin spring training, undoubtedly with boos falling on him. But at least he told a version of what may have been an approximate slice of truth. And really, that seems like an improvement over how some other stars have discussed the steroid years. It took an anonymous leak of test results that should have remained confidential and been destroyed, but Rodriguez admitted that from 2001 into 2003 he took something illegal. He said he did not know what he took, which sounds a trifle unbelievable, given the obsessive attention he and other wealthy professionals pay to their bodies. But he admitted taking something, and that is a start. After Sports Illustrated disclosed his past steroid usage over the weekend, Rodriguez went on ESPN Monday and confessed to Peter Gammons that he had been “stupid.” Of course, Rodriguez did not think he was stupid back then. He probably figured he would never get caught. Now the question is, what do we do about Rodriguez, who had become the great healthy hope to obliterate the career home-run totals of Barry Bonds? In a way, Rodriguez already surpassed Bonds on Monday. He went on television, his sturdy physique shuddering from emotion, and was believable in ways that Bonds has not been, either in public or apparently in front of the grand jury in the Balco investigation. Rodriguez also outdid Mark McGwire, whose face turned red and who seemed to shrink in front of a congressional panel in 2005, as he refused to discuss whether he had used performance-enhancing drugs. Trapped by leaks and blunders, Rodriguez gave up something of himself – a coup for a man so intent on seeming perfect that he often seems empty. Nobody can say they believe him totally, but he gave up enough that he can go forward. Some people will say the Yankees should just cut him loose, but nobody is taking up his 10-year contract of $275-million, which runs for nine more years. Even the wealthy Yankees cannot afford to ditch him. He is theirs. He must walk into spring training next week, and start the season in early April, with his admission hanging over him – but also slightly behind him. He cheated. He may have broken the law. He was stupid. He still sounds vague and dopey about what he took and what he knew, but the industry cannot do anything to him because the Players Association and Major League Baseball managed to delay serious testing and penalties in those years. While McGwire was openly using a steroid substitute in 1998, and Bonds apparently was so jealous that he looked up the seedy Balco laboratory – his initials are all over their records -- Rodriguez claims he waited until 2001 to take some drug from somebody. Judging by his admission, it is obvious some of his 553 home runs were clouted courtesy of the juice. But baseball will never be able to quantify what these sluggers – or pitchers like Roger Clemens – owe to the stuff. What’s the formula? An arbitrary 10 percent of home runs and strikeouts? This is never going to go away for Rodriguez. He was already a marked man, heading into spring training with the title “A-Fraud” pasted across his broad back, courtesy of an un-necessary book by his former manager, Joe Torre, who once batted him eighth as the Yankees faced elimination in a post-season series in Detroit. Rodriguez was so messed up in the clutch that the manager put him at double cleanup. Even without the drug confession, he carries a heavy load, even with Torre gone. There has never been much relief for Rodriguez. He brought it on himself before he ever got there, by sniping at Derek Jeter, who has never forgotten or forgiven, and never will. You can just feel Jeter’s scorn in the air. Yankee fans don’t particularly care for A-Rod, either, because he has never won them a World Series, and in the Bronx what else is there? Now Rodriguez goes into spring training with his admission of cheating — before he ever joined the Yankees, of course. It’s a good limited confession. Unless something else comes up. The fans will boo in New York and they will boo elsewhere, but there is nothing to be done. At least Rodriguez mustered up the reality to admit doing something. He did not smugly say the past is the past, as McGwire did. A-Rod was not prepared to commit social perjury. He got up and said he did something. A-Rod may have had a breakthrough. In the immortal final sentence from the psychiatrist in Philip Roth’s novel, Portnoy’s Complaint: “Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?”