ALEX RODRIGUEZ’S story is that he wants us to treat his three years with the Texas Rangers as something to quarantine, something to think of as contaminated and not to be spread over the rest of his career.
DISGUSTED FANS ARE CALLING IT FOUL BALL
Rodriguez is essentially saying you can remove the 156 homers he hit as a Ranger and the 2003 AL MVP award he won. He is sacrificing them, like amputating a leg infected with gangrene as a way to save the whole body, which in his case is still the body of work of an undeniable Hall of Famer.
Will this work? Will Rodriguez salvage big chunks of his reputation and statistical legitimacy by telling Peter Gammons of ESPN that he was a steroid cheat for just a three-year period, 2001-03?
The answer does not come from a single attempt at absolution. It comes with further exploration of Rodriguez’s past and how he handles the future.
Remember, his credibility already is dubious. He lied to Katie Couric in 2007 in saying he never used illegal performance enhancers, and to many reporters – me included – who directly asked him these questions over the past few years. So could he be spinning again, trying to blunt as much of his dirty drug history as possible? You bet.
A-Rod always mulls over which words will make him look best. So you can bet he was coached like crazy for this ESPN interview. His first answer to Gammons sounded rehearsed, as if he were readying a one-man show for Broadway.
And the most passionate he was in the 30-plus-minute interview was in attacking the motives and tactics of Sports Illustrated reporter Selena Roberts, who broke the story about A-Rod’s 2003 failed steroid test. She quickly and convincingly repudiated his contentions, leaving the impression A-Rod was being disingenuous on the most important day of his life in which he needed to be totally truthful.
This “shoot the messenger but agree with the message” tactic was poorly conceived. However, it will be forgotten if his vows about the past and future prove true, and are not a spin job crafted by agents and p.r. men and funneled through a handpicked reporter for the best results. For A-Rod’s sake, there better not be a smoking syringe out there with a date prior to his Texas arrival or since his Yankee entrance five years ago.
Because if new, credible evidence arises linking Rodriguez to steroids as either a Mariner or a Yankee, then he is A-Fraud forever; no further shots at image sprucing.
But let’s give Rodriguez the benefit of the doubt today. Faced with the SI revelations, Rodriguez did not use his first public statement to say he did not want to speak about the past or that he “mis-remembered” his past.
A-Rod owned up to falling prey to the size of his ego and contract, and to a culture that rewarded cheats. But that is not enough. He has the rest of his baseball career and the rest of his life to try to make as many amends as possible.
He must insist on being tested more regularly than anyone, with his results made public. He must excel under those conditions to verify what he said yesterday to ESPN, that he was a knucklehead for doing the drugs, because he can thrive without them. He is now promising to use his money and influence to warn youth not to be weak like him when it comes to illegal performance enhancers. His interview with ESPN cannot be the end of the story, just the beginning.
Alex Rodriguez wants to cordon off those awesome three years as a Ranger, treat them like a cancer to an otherwise untainted career. Then there better be no new revelations, and there better be lives helped beyond his own.