Baseball's Disgrace

I’ve never been an Alex Rodriquez fan. I don’t like the fact that he plays for my all time favorite sports team. In my opinion, Alex Rodriquez has never felt like a Yankee. He never looked good in the “pinstripes” from the back in the way that Dave Winfield, “Mr. October, Willie Randolph and others looked. You can file that last comment under girl just want to have fun. Meaning, only a woman and real female Yankee fan would get it.

However, all jokes and fun aside, this latest baseball steroid story has brought me out from under, “my indifference rock.” While I have never liked Alex Rodriquez, the lack of integrity disturbs me more. It is my understanding that when these players were screened or tested in 2003 that the results were supposed to be “confidential.” Question, how did Alex Rodriquez’s test result become public? Why did we run to the bias media to ask if A-Rod would become a MLB Hall of Famer? Why was the first instinct to protect the reporter of this story’s source?

Why do we think that Jose Canceso has some how been vindication when he has been allowed, for profit and press mind you, to expose his fellow baseball brethren in the name of capitalism? Jose Canceso or the people who helped him don’t give a damn about baseball, and that’s what makes what he has done all the more sickening. He doesn’t care about the preservation and integrity of America’s past time. He is a self professed cheater. When do self professed cheaters get “air-time?” Jose Canseco is an angry man who wants others to join him in his misery. Question, why do we as Americans feed off of this type of individual and story? What is inherently wrong with us when we think it is okay for one to expose another knowing that none of us are perfect and knowing that the innocent will also be harmed?

I say this to say that A-Rod’s privacy was violated. I do not condone the use of performance enhancing drugs in sports, but the bigger question is why athletes and others take this risk in the first place. Me, you, them have grown up in a culture that places value (both intrinsic and extrinsic) on an individual because of the money they make, their occupation, the person they are sleeping with at the time, their friends and a host of other insane criteria.

To date, I see no one calling for the resignation of Bud Selig, the sanctioning of any owner or calling for a full scale investigation of anyone at the top (the union, agents, and lawyers). All of baseball is guilty. The goal was to save baseball by any means necessary due to the anger brought on by the fans about the strike and the heat of competition felt by the NBA and NFL, which brings me to the next question. Why do we knowingly allow others to destroy themselves in the name of profit, and when it becomes inconvenient, we throw these people under the bus? I was taught that lying is wrong. Lying under oath is even worst. All people who work in baseball take an oath to protect its institution. Let’s indict Bud Selig, the owners, the imperfect media, for years that has been gender and racially bias, who would use any excuse not to celebrate the contributions of a man of color. Yes, I invoked the race card because it has been in the deck that has been stacked against most people of color in America. Read your history, if you got a problem with this statement, and come back to it.

I always ask people who watched baseball, in this so-called steroid or Pete Rose era, where they were when Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro Jose Canseco, Pete Rose and others where making the ultimate sacrifice of their bodies and integrity, for profit, and why did we allowed it, and why we think by punishing them makes where we were when it happened or their baseball contributions any less real.

I was there. We were all there, and we all watched and said nothing. Stop lying! We knew just as a parent knows when their child is in trouble, if they love them and are paying attention. The answer is we didn’t care. We were selfish. Hopeful this drama and the lives a people destroyed will make us get involved and not when we seek fame or profit by doing it, but because we genuinely give a damn about others and what happens to them. All of us could be the next A-Rod. I don’t see this story just having an impact on sports. Anyone can be harmed from any occupation in the name of someone’s revenge or goal to seek fame or that promotion.