The feeding frenzy on Alex Rodriguez these last few days is a definitive statement on the insatiable tabloid mentality of the press. Nothing more.
It's not so much the questions that were asked by reporters at yesterday's press conference that I take issue with--although George A King III asking A-Rod to surrender his "cousin's" name was reprehensible-it's the mindless drivel from the sports talk shows and newspapers articles. The revisionist vitriol flows like hypocritical lava from the pens of writers who failed to acknowledge the steroid era until it became politically correct to do so.
This much is clear. A-Rod could not win. Nothing he said would have satisfied those who hate him in the first place. He's hated because he makes tons of money, he's hated because he plays for the Yankees, he's hated because there is a misguided notion that he doesn't hit in the "clutch" (as if such a thing existed in the first place), and he is hated because he is a really bad communicator-and the press will always jump on anyone who they deem to be less articulate than their educated selves.
GM Brian Cashman addressed A-Rod's poor public speaking skills: "The one thing he could have said was the fact he chose to do this to make himself better ... at what he does on the baseball field. That's the truth… I don't think Alex is very good at communicating ... whether it's about talking about your game and the impact you had on it after hitting a home run or if he had a tough game at the park…Anybody that's been in that clubhouse when he's trying to talk about success or failure on the baseball diamond knows that is something he is not very good at."
Make no mistake: if A-Rod were polished and debonair, he would have been admonished for being too orchestrated. Instead, he was clumsy and nervous, so he gets admonished for that.
Yes, A-Rod left some facts out and unless he tests positive again, we will never know for sure whether he has juiced with the Yanks. The identity of the mysterious cousin also throws a monkey wrench into the details of the story. But the bottom line take-home point is that A-Rod takes responsibility for his actions.
"This is about me. I'm the one that screwed up."
That's a lot better than what we heard from Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds. Yet the press vilifies A-Rod. When Andy Pettitte admitted taking HGH, he was almost universally lauded by the press, and we saw headlines such as "Honest Andy Comes Clean."
But no such headlines greet A-Rod. A friend of mine from Miami, who wishes not to reveal her name, had this to say on nomaas.org, and it sums up my views exactly. Hypocrisy is really the core of this issue:
After seeing clips from the press conference and hearing some of the reaction, it's clear the media won't let go until A-Rod donates all his money to charity, takes full blame for the Holocaust and apologizes personally for slavery.
For example, Buster Olney said that if A-Rod is lying about his PED use he had his three chances to tell the truth and should then be called in front of a Congressional commission. Also, that Selig would have to make an example of him. That was just breathtaking. Has Alex been under oath at any point? Did I just miss it? If he has lied, he'll appropriately get (even more) hell from the media and the fans, but last I checked the punishment for lying in TV interviews or a press conference isn't a one-way ticket to a Congressional committee or suspension from the league. And don't forget this all came from a leaked, supposedly 100% ironclad confidential test result where 103 other players are equally as guilty. This is madness.
The pontificating by the media, who are totally complicit themselves in enabling the steroid era by not investigating the obvious signs then, is f***ing hilarious. I think the best thing to do is to throw just about every baseball writer & commentator into a pit of boiling tar, find a new, better, smarter group and start again.
So, it appears that A-Rod supporters are in the minority. No Problem, being in the minority is often the lot of the tasteful and virtuous.
A-Rod is not Michael Vick. He is not Dustin Pedroia's brother. He is not Pete Rose. He's a baseball player that, misguidedly, was looking for a way to make himself more valuable to his team. He was wrong. He admitted it. Time to move on.
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