Can he come back? Will he come back?
This will soon be the substance of the conversation surrounding Alex Rodriguez and, as you will see, when we take a look at this rogues’ gallery of suspended athletes, there is no set answer for that. Rodriguez is not the first pro athlete to have the book thrown at him. Nor is he the highest-profile one.
A study in suspended animation:
Lifetime bans
Lance Armstrong: Maybe the only athlete who can fully understand what A-Rod is thinking right now. Ultimately decided to come clean to Oprah. Will never compete in anything ever again. Ruined.
The Black Sox: Still the gold standard for sporting felonies, most of the eight got what was coming to them; Buck Weaver probably didn’t deserve it. Shoeless Joe Jackson paid — and keeps paying — the biggest price of all.
Art Schlichter: Hard to believe, but there was a time we thought gambling was the singular scourge in sports. Now it all seems so innocent.
Stanley Wilson: Well, until it seemed cocaine was. Wilson’s third coke incident came on the eve of Super Bowl XXIII. He never played another down.
Billy Coutu: The only NHL player ever banned for life, after attacking two referees following Game 4 of the 1927 Stanley Cup Final.
Eight years
Merle Hapes: If A-Rod thinks he was railroaded, how about Hapes: The Giants fullback was offered $3,500 to fix the ’46 NFL title game against the Bears and reported it to commissioner Bert Bell, who kicked him out of the game anyway for talking with a gambler. By the time Bell came to his senses in 1954 and lifted the ban, it was too late for Hapes.
Three years, six months
Muhammad Ali: Or someone can refresh A-Rod’s memory on the case of Ali, who was stripped of his heavyweight title and his boxing license for refusing induction into the army on religious grounds. Ali had the most fruitful of all post-suspension careers, twice regaining the belt by beating George Foreman (1974) and Leon Spinks (1978).
Two years, eight months
Plaxico Burress: A Super Bowl hero for the Giants, he returned to the Jets a fraction of his old self and had a brief return to the Steelers.
One year
Alex Rodriguez: ???
Donte Stallworth: Stallworth’s career was in decline even before sitting out the 2009 season after a drunk-driving incident in which he killed a pedestrian.
Paul Hornung: Came back from a year-long gambling suspension to lead the Packers to the 1965 NFL championship, and still made the Hall of Fame despite the ban.
Alex Karras: Hit along with Hornung, Karras also returned to play at a Pro Bowl level and enjoyed a prosperous post-career in broadcasting, acting and wrestling.
Partial seasons
Guillermo Mota (100 games): Mets fans only wish the previous record-holder for steroid cheating would have been banned during his awful tenure in Flushing.
Ron Artest (86 games): The future Metta World Peace lost almost all of the 2004 season after the melee at The Palace. Came back to not only win a title in L.A. in 2010 but the NBA’s Citizenship Award in 2011.
Neifi Perez (80 games): And if ever there were evidence that steroid use (three infractions!) doesn’t always do what you think it should …
Latrell Sprewell (68 games): Ostracized for choking P.J. Carlesimo in 1997, Sprewell found himself in the unlikely position of New York folk hero the very next season, leading the Knicks to the Finals, and was an All-Star in 2001.
Ryan Braun (65 games): We assume A-Rod will be paying close attention.
Gilbert Arenas (50 games): Before his ban on gun charges: three-time All-Star. Afterward: out of the league, playing in China.
Manny Ramirez (50 games): Would have been 100 more if he had found a team willing to give him a job after his second bust.
Kermit Washington (26 games): Hard to imagine how long the ban would be now for a punch that nearly killed Rudy Tomjanovich. Rebounded to make the 1980 All-Star Game.
Whack Back at Vac
Peter Murphy: I grew up listening to Lindsey Nelson, Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner and was a Mets fan thanks to my late mother, who always had games on the black-and-white TV while cooking, or her battery operated radio while gardening or at the beach. I never forgot her telling me, “Ralph Kiner taught me the game of baseball.”
Vac: That may be the greatest of all of Mr. Kiner’s legacies: the thousands — millions? — of people who learned baseball through him.
Alan Hirschberg: My favorite Ralph Kiner story: When he was married to tennis pro Nancy Chaffee, they would play each other all the time, and she always beat him. Being a world-class athlete himself, Ralph was frustrated by this. Finally, one day he was able to win a match. “And it must have been lucky,” Ralph said, “because the next day we had our first child.”
Vac: And as with most Kiner stories, it doesn’t even matter if it really happened that way because it SHOULD have happened that way.
Steven Schafler: Q: How do you make Bronco cookies? A: Put them in a big bowl and beat them for three hours.
Vac: For making us endure that awful game, jokes are the least the Broncos can do to make it up to us.
@thomfra: Who would have thought the Pro Bowl would be a better game than the Super Bowl?
@MikeVacc: Maybe it would have been a better game if John Fox and Pete Carroll chose up sides before the coin toss.
Vac’s Whacks
All this obsessive talk about Peyton Manning’s legacy, people lose sight of the bright side: He doesn’t have to look up at Tom Brady anymore. Now they’ve both lost two Super Bowls.
The documentary on Lenny Cooke presently available on Showtime is just about the most heartbreaking movie you’ll ever see.
Was going to watch a little Olympics yesterday, but there was a formal growling protest lodged by the Airedale and the Westy in our living room, in solidarity with their doomed Russian brethren. So I went with a “Family Guy” rerun instead.
From the why-don’t-they-just-make-the-whole-plane-out-of-the-black-box theory: Maybe the Knicks should just threaten Mike Woodson with a win-or-else ultimatum every game the rest of the way.