Friday column: Maybe he can also work on ending poverty

At his tightly controlled news conference a few days ago, Alex Rodriguez told us he wants to “start making the world a better place.”

Which is sweet.

Of course, he didn’t say how he would begin to do that, but then, Miss Congeniality really isn’t into specifics — such as exactly what steroids he took and exactly how he got them.

Nor is he particularly forthcoming about his association with trainer Angel Presinal, who has been linked to performance-enhancing drugs and is banned from every clubhouse in Major League Baseball.

According to the New York Daily News, Presinal was Rodriguez’s constant companion in 2007, when the Yankee third baseman’s home-run total jumped from 35 to 54.

Asked about Presinal, Rodriguez said, “I’m not getting into any of that.”

I can’t say I blame him, and his staying mum is OK with me, as it allows use of a line I found at QuotationPage.com: “Actions lie louder than words.”

The quote’s author, Carolyn Wells (1862-1942), was a writer known mostly for nonsense verse, which makes her perfect for today’s column — for a lot of what is being said about the steroid situation is nonsense.

Such as, Bud Selig’s insistence that he bears no responsibility for baseball’s steroid mess:

“I don’t want to hear the commissioner turned a blind eye to this or he didn’t care about it,” Selig said. “That annoys the you-know-what out of me. … I think we’ve come farther than anyone ever dreamed possible.”

However far the game has come — and the distance is debatable — is not because of Selig but pressure from Congress in the form of embarrassing hearings and the threat to mandate year-round, Olympic-style testing.

Leadership? Selig couldn’t lead a fish to water.

Now Donald Fehr is a leader, and he’s led the baseball union to a place where many of its most accomplished members are not only despised, but likely to be kept out of the Hall of Fame in spite of amazing numbers — numbers like 762 home runs, numbers like 354 career wins.

Fehr’s beef is that people keep talking about performance-enhancing drugs as though they are still a problem. Insists Fehr: “We fixed the problem and we need to look forward, as Bud has said many times.”

Any time Fehr is agreeing with Selig, it’s time for a bunkum alert.

Fehr fought testing tooth and nail, relenting only under congressional pressure, and he has the brass to say, “We” fixed the problem? We fixed the problem? That’s like Jeff Davis saying, “We ended slavery.”

Then there’s the little matter of HGH, which baseball does not test for.
Maybe A-Rod could publicly push for such testing — which was used at last year’s Olympics. That would make the baseball world, at least, a better place.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.