he keeps lurching from one fuck up…
…to another and he only just wants to be loved.
The poor old bugger, if there’s way for it to go wrong then he’ll find it, from signing with the biggest team in the sport, to having a meal with a stripper, to resigning with the biggest team in the sport, to going out with a famous women, to appearing in manager’s kiss and tell book, to giving and failing an anonymous drug test.
If only he’d been born Derek Jeter.
Then he’d have gone through life with ease, no effort required, nobody would have bothered so much about who he went out with – though of course he would have gone out with women that looked like women not blokes in drag *cough* Madonna tranny *cough*. He wouldn’t be the main talking point in books basically written by Joe Torre even though the ex-manager ripped many others. His contracts wouldn’t be played out in the media while the World Series was ongoing.
And he probably wouldn’t have spent yesterday answering Peter Gammons’ questions about taking performance enhancing substances during his years with the Texas Rangers – well being Derek he wouldn’t have been in that team anyway – looking like he was wearing lipstick, is that what PEDs do, shrink your nuts and turn your lips funny a funny colour?
He’s just not that lucky, he was born Alex Rodriguez with all the faults and flaws that has followed him since. Which also meant that the results of those drug test were able to come out in 2009, even though they were legal sealed, and that of the 104 players who it was claimed failed the tests only one name came out into the public domain.
It also meant that no matter what he did after the fact he failed a test came out he wouldn’t be able to do right for doing wrong. Of course he’s now getting ripped for not being exact on what he took and when he took it…
GAMMONS: You’re saying that the time period was 2001, ‘2 and ‘3?
RODRIGUEZ: That’s pretty accurate, yes.GAMMONS: What kind of substances were you taking?
RODRIGUEZ: …. I don’t know exactly what substance I was guilty of using. Full transcript
I don’t know, is he that obsessive compulsive that he kept a record of every injection or every pill, pretty accurate so it may have been a month here a month there, does it really matter, he took ’em. And why would he know what he took, yes it’s claimed that athletes watch everything that goes into their system but if some trainer/doctor/teammate hands him something and says this will help you get ripped and be less prone to injury if the athlete knows it’s a banned steroid, with probably side effects, would he ask more than that, would he really want to know the trademarked name, the generic name or what exactly every chemical was in the syringe/pill. Doubtful, he’d more than likely just have it jabbed into him or pop down the pill with whatever sports drink he’s sponsored by.
I’ve stuck up for A-Rod in the past, he’s the best in the game, of course slagged off Barry Bonds and José Canseco – who it turns out was right after all, the stuff Rodriguez was on doesn’t give you the ‘roid neck and zits – it’s tough now, but the Yanks stood by Giambi and Pettitte when they admitted to similar offences, would they write off all the money and dump Rodriguez now as some have suggested to clean up their name, though he says he stopped before joining? Funny how the Yanks are getting so much stick and the Rangers aren’t.
Alex was due for a big season, odd numbered year and all that, many wondered what the effect of Torre’s book would have added to the every day woes of A-Rod, now this comes along. Well on the plus side he couldn’t be booed more by opposition or indeed his own fans any more than he has over the last five seasons.
No doubt everything he does now will be qualified with an asterisk, just think he was the natural, he worked hard at his game, did he need illegal substances to become a statistical legend? But then he wouldn’t be Alex Rodriguez if he hadn’t found a way of screwing it up.