Maybe there's a cream ...

Recommended reading: Tracee Hamilton's Washington Post column on the latest trouble Alex Rodriguez has managed to get himself into — no, not steroids again, but high-stakes gambling, against which he'd been warned. Writes Hamilton: All baseball can do is suspend Rodriguez, "because let’s face it: They can’t make him smarter. If only someone could come up with an injection for that."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/alex-rodriguez-usually-bluffing-rarely-a-safe-bet/2011/08/04/gIQA2V0MuI_story.html

Ah, commerce

Praise of Alex Rodriguez doesn’t flow from my keyboard very often, but I give the Yankees third baseball credit for his take on the killing of Osama bin Laden. Rodriguez put the focus on America’s military:

"I think that the word 'heroes' are (sic) used far too often when you talk about athletes and actors. The real heroes are out on the battlefields, protecting our well being, allowing us the opportunity to play baseball or take our daughters or kids to the park. They're the real heroes."

On the other hand, in Oakland, A's public address announcer Dick Callahan asked fans to “Raise their Budweisers” in appreciation for those who serve the country.

Yes, let’s support the troops — but get in a commercial plug at the same time.

Lovely.

Friday column: In the long run, is the money enough?

Who steals my purse steals trash; ’t is something, nothing;
’T was mine, ’t is his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
— from Othello

The outgoing head of baseball’s player union was all about the purse; not its filching — its filling, and fill it he did.

Under Donald Fehr’s leadership, the average major league salary grew from $293,000 to $2.9 million. So, too, grew players’ power and perks.

All this is fine. What worker doesn’t want more money and more control over his environment? Baseball players, who for decades had been abused by management, had to battle owners hard for fair compensation and basic rights. In this, they were more than well served by Fehr.

Fehr’s never-give-an-inch mentality and his focus on improving the financial well-being of the players helped baseball’s union become the envy of professional athletes everywhere. His tooth-and-nail fight against drug testing has to be seen largely in the light of taking care of the players’ pocketbooks: Steroids meant greater performances, and greater performances meant more money.

But that mind-set came with costs.

The vast number of major league steroid users from the “glory days” remain anonymous, which means determining the effects of the illegal performing-enhancing drugs on their aging bodies will be difficult to impossible. But as steroid use can lead to liver tumors and cancer, high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke, there’s no question Fehr, the union and all of baseball put players’ long-term health at risk for financial gain.

Fehr’s long resistance to drug testing came with another price, one easier to gauge.

This year, Mark McGwire, a man with 583 home runs, received 21.9 percent of the votes for the Hall of Fame. Needed for election: 75 percent.

Monday, the Oakland A’s began to honor their 1989 world champion team by giving away replicas of McGwire’s jersey. But the former slugger, who was invited to throw out the first pitch, wasn’t on hand. It seems that even in Oakland he won’t risk being booed, or being hounded by reporters. He might as well be in the witness-protection program.

Ask McGwire today if he would like his reputation back. For that matter, ask Alex Rodriguez or Barry Bonds. Ask Roger Clemens or Raphael Palmeiro. I’m guessing that if they had it to do all over again, they’d take less green in exchange for a good name.

Fehr didn’t make anyone take steroids, but he made it easier for players to do. As Fehr retires, and his legacy is discussed, I’m thinking he, too, would like a do-over with the drug era.

For his name’s sake.

Vituperation all around (and well-deserved)

Recommended reading: Nicholas Dawidoff’s New York Times review of Selena Robert’s book A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez.

Besides portraying A-Rod as a “a needy, phony, preening, petulant, self-absorbed narcissist” — in Dawidoff’s words — Roberts doesn’t mince syllables when attacking all the elements of the game that were complicit in the steroid scandal.

Writes Dawidoff:

“Ms. Roberts’s depiction of Rodriguez’s agent, Scott Boras, as a greedy, vengeful manipulator in league with the feckless Players’ Association and a pliant commissioner’s office, to help ballplayers inflate their statistics, and so their attendance figures, and so their salaries, is the most devastating part of her book.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/books/15book.html?_r=1&ref=sports

Friday column: Lies? Bet the House on it

So.

Outfielder Manny Ramirez tested positive for banned substances because his doctor prescribed something for a “personal health issue.”

And NASCAR driver Jeremy Mayfield came up dirty because “the combination of a prescribed medicine and an over-the-counter medicine reacted together and resulted in a positive drug test.”

Even Louis Caldera — the Ground Zero Fly-by Guy — has a prescription-related excuse for his boo-boo: The suddenly former head of the White House Military Office told The Associated Press he was suffering from severe muscle aches and had been prescribed pain medication.

They say that hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue; if so, those are about the only props virtue is getting these days.

What’s that line uttered by House’s Hugh Laurie? Everybody lies. Let’s update it. Everybody cheats, then lies. No, you’re right — sometimes they lie, then cheat, then lie some more.

Here’s one way athletes lie: “I made a mistake.”

Let’s be clear: When a copy editor misspells a word in 72-point type, that’s a mistake. When an athlete uses steroids or human growth hormone, that’s cheating. Mistake and cheating are not synonymous.

Neither are team and fan, though you wouldn’t know it by the way some jock devotees stick with their favorites through thick and trick — like the Dodgers fans who don’t appear to have a problem with Manny being Manny, even when that turns out to mean Manny being Barry.

Many of the same fans who excoriated the Giants for keeping Barry Bonds — Mr. Steroid — on the payroll, are making excuses for Ramirez — Mr. Female Fertility Drug.

Fans have been known to accuse athletes of being self-absorbed at the expense of the game, saying that for certain athletes, “It’s all about me.” Well, sports fans, guess what? When you support a player like Ramirez or Bonds or A-Rod (or just fill in the cheat), because they help your team win and elevate your little ego, you, too, are saying, “It’s all about me.”

Staying with hypocrisy (a rill that never runs dry), we also have the various enablers — agents, lawyers, flacks — who make a living promoting lies, like so many dung beetles pushing excrement. Where would our heroes be without their sage advice?

In his first — and so far only — public statement, Ramirez followed his lame excuse by saying he’d “been advised not to say anything more for now.” I completely understand. After all, how’s Manny going to know what to say next until Scott Boras has crafted the requisite talking points? It takes time to mold excreta into just the right shape.

Speaking of guano, Mayfield — after trying to float his verbal lead balloon — told the press, “My doctor and I are working with ... NASCAR to resolve this matter.”

I’m sure he’ll get back to us very soon.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Friday column: A-Rod to Aquinas to Aristotle

The wicked prowl on every side,/ and that which is worthless is highly prized by everyone. — Psalm 12, verse 8

The wicked get more than enough attention here, so today I want to focus on the second line quoted above. It leapt to mind Tuesday as I looked at the lead photo of The New Mexican, which showed a camera-toting young woman positively ecstatic to be in close proximity — less than a foot! — to Loomis Fall from the movie Jackass.

I don’t mean to be hard on the woman. I was 21 once, and at that age a brush with celebrity of any kind surely would have had me grinning ear to ear, too.

Furthermore, while infatuation with celebrity often decreases with the increase of experience and perspective, some things that are worthless continue to be highly prized by folks of any age.

Which brings me to Alex Rodriguez and, oddly enough, Thomas Aquinas.

In one of his writings, the 13th-century theologian deduced that “man’s ultimate happiness consists in contemplation of the truth.” Along the way, he philosophically discarded certain things that did not bring ultimate happiness; these included wealth, sensual pleasure — and honors.

“Only the good can be worthy of honor,” Aquinas wrote, “and yet it is possible even for the wicked to be honored. Therefore it is better to become worthy of honor, than to be honored.”

If you can believe Selena Roberts, author of A-Rod: The Many Faces of Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees third baseman worries about honor — other people’s opinions of him. Actually, you don’t have to believe Roberts; you can believe Joe Torre or any number of former teammates who’ve testified to A-Rod’s overwhelming desire to be liked and respected.

Unfortunately, for A-Rod, it’s the intensity of this very desire that seems to undermine his efforts to be well thought of, that leads to teammates seeing him as superficial and phony.

Torre, in The Yankee Years, wrote that he used to tell Rodriguez, “You do things on the field that draw attention to yourself that are unnecessary, and you want people to know how good you are, how smart a ballplayer you are. And we already know that. Just play. Stop saying, ‘Look at me.’ ”

That, apparently, is one thing he can’t do, either on field or off — witness his very public fling with Madonna.

As I don’t mean to be hard on the woman thrilled to be in the presence of Loomis Fall, so I don’t mean to be too hard on A-Rod. He might crave the high opinion of others more than many, but few — if any — of us are immune to that desire.

So perhaps it’s well to end with a reminder, a restatement of Aquinas’ final point by the man who was his philosopher master.

“Dignity does not consist in possessing honors,” Aristotle said, “but in deserving them.”

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com

This is only going to get better

Ah, A-Rod.

Those of you who have been waiting for the other shoe to drop in the A-Rod saga, direct your antennae-like appendages toward New York, where the Daily News is reporting more details from Selena Roberts’ upcoming book on Alex Rodriguez.

The book claims Rodriguez did not stop using steroids when he went to the Yankees — as he has insisted — and might have been juiced way back in high school.

As might be expected, Rodriguez is less than forthcoming about the latest allegations.

“I’m not going there,” he said Thursday. “I’m just so excited about being back on the field and playing baseball.”

I bet you are, Alex. And I’m just so excited to see what else Roberts will say about the man his teammates have dubbed “A-Fraud.”

Friday column: Reality sometimes reassures

A recent issue of The New Yorker looked at the economic rise and collapse of Iceland — which soared on much of the same financial maneuvering and hubris that led to our own recession, then crashed and burned when credit tightened worldwide.

One Icelander compared the nation’s heady days to the “dream season” on the TV show Dallas, adding, “People were thinking, ‘Wow, we’re one of the richest countries in the world.’ Then they woke up.”

The waking up has been hard on the tiny country but is not without a plus side. As one writer puts it: “The people who couldn’t understand how money could be created this way are relieved that it wasn’t reality. It was true what your grandmother said: Don’t owe too much, don’t take risks, use things well.”

In the sports world, too, verities sometimes prove eternal.

Take the New York Yankees and Alex Rodriguez.

In December 2007, the Steinbrenners — known for unapologetically trying to corner the market on talent — decided it prudent to throw $275 million at A-Rod.

This even though the Yankees had won zero World Series since Rodriguez had moved to the Big Apple, and even though he would be 42 when his nine-year contract ended.

Since that time, Rodriguez has been outed as a steroid user and a liar — just the sort of bloke you want as the face of your franchise for most of a decade. Now an injury has made his future even more uncertain.

Verity confirmed: You can’t just go out and buy a title.

Take the Dallas Cowboys and Terrell Owens.

In March 2006, Jerry Jones decided that Owens’ talent and star power were more important than the wide receiver’s track record as a clubhouse cancer.

Since that time, there have been plenty of touchdowns, but also plenty of backbiting — and not a single playoff win. So now, Owens has been cut loose, free to ply his trade — and his mouth — in Buffalo.

Verity confirmed: Character matters.

Take Manny Ramirez and Scott Boras.

In the summer of 2008, Ramirez began acting out more than usual — including benching himself with phantom injuries — in order to get out of the last two years of his Boston contract. Word is, his agent Boras promised he’d get him A-Rod money in a bidding war.

Well, Ramirez got out of his Boston deal. But this winter, the Dodgers were the only team interested in him, and they signed the outfielder for roughly what he would have made in Boston.

Verity confirmed: Bad behavior — especially quitting on teammates — can be bad for business.

If none of these individuals or teams have crashed and burned like Iceland — or the Dow Jones industrial average — they’ve still experienced downturns, what Wall Street types call corrections, and in today’s moral climate all corrections are welcome.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

Oops

If you’re Alex Rodriguez, and you’re been busted for using steroids …

If you’ve told the nation’s sporting press you got the drugs from your cousin …

If your story is that your cousin not only provided the drugs but shot you up with them …

You might — I say might — want to have your cousin stay away for a while.

Instead, Rodriguez has his cousin Yuri Sucart pick him up after the Yankees’ first spring training game.

Smooth move, A-Rod.

Sucart’s presence did not go unnoticed by the press or by Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, who said Thursday that the matter “has been handled.”

I bet it has.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2009/news/story?id=3936975

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.

How do you really feel, Ozzie?

Sunday, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen took a shot at baseball’s penalties for banned substances, saying first-time violators should be kicked out of the game for a year. Currently, the penalty is 50 games.

"I feel we have to do something very drastic about this situation," he said.

The more Guillen talked, the more worked up he became, finally advocating a one-strike-and-you’re-out rule.

"That 50-game suspension? That's bull,” Guillen said. “I would say, 'Man, you get caught now, you're done for life.’ "

Later in the week, he took a shot at Alex Rodriguez — specifically at the story A-Rod peddled at his Tuesday news conference. Guillen didn’t exactly buy Rodriguez’s tale of not knowing what banned substances he took. Said Guillen:

"When you say you don't know what you was taking, he's like spitting in your face, like ignorance — "You guys are a bunch of idiots.

"Wow. You've been doing it for three, four, five years, six years, and you don't know what it's doing? I don't buy that one. I'm sorry. Alex is my dear friend but that's a slap in my face ... do you think I'm stupid?"

Marvin, Marvin, Marvin …

Marvin Miller is more responsible than anyone for the rights and privileges that Major League Baseball players enjoy. Before Miller came along, owners truly took advantage of the athletes. Miller leveled the playing field — and then some. Good for him.

But Miller’s off base in his response to the outing of Alex Rodriguez as a steroid cheat.

According to Miller, the Players Association never should have agreed to testing in the first place:

"When (union leaders) agreed on a testing program, I said, 'They're going to regret this, because you're going to see players going to jail.' "

"It's a witch hunt in baseball, for sure …" Miller said.

Two points:

1) Yes, in agreeing to testing, the union cowed to pressure from Congress, but if the union hadn’t, it might well have ended up with congressionally mandated testing — year-round — that's much tougher than what they're stuck with now.

2) What makes a witch hunt a "witch hunt" is the idea that witches don't actually exist. Steroid cheats most certainly do.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3896888

Friday column: Father, forgive me, for I have juiced

The bad news for Alex Rodriguez is that he’s been revealed as a steroid cheat and a liar.

The good news?

Indulgences are back!

According to The New York Times, indulgences reintroduced in the Roman Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II have “increased markedly” under Benedict XVI.

Asked why the church is bringing them back, Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio told The Times, “Because there is sin in the world.”

Really? We hadn’t noticed.

OK, we’ve noticed.

Now, if you’re not Catholic — and even if you are — you might be asking, “What the heck is an indulgence?” Well, it depends on whom you ask.

According to The Times article, it’s a “sort of amnesty from punishment in the afterlife” — think time off from purgatory. But according to Wikipedia, referencing the Catholic Code of Canon Law, an indulgence is a full or partial remission of temporal punishment — think getting voted into the Hall of Fame in spite of being an admitted juicer.

In either case, Rodriguez would seem to stand to benefit. So, what does he need to do?

I know what you’re thinking — make a run for the nearest ATM. But, no, no, Martin Luther, the indulgences of today cannot be sold although, according to The Times, “charitable contributions, combined with other acts,” can help you earn one.

Which is more good news for A-Rod, who in 2001 signed a then-record $250 million contract with the Texas Rangers and is now working on a $275 million, 10-year deal with the Yankees. Charitable contributions are no problem.

Ah, but an indulgence also involves confession — and no, a dodgy sit-down with ESPN’s Peter Gammons doesn’t qualify.

Yes, Rodriguez is to be congratulated for being smarter than Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire, who dwell in the land of denial and silence. But his attempt during the Gammons interview to evade and shift responsibility by blaming a) his youth; b) the expectations that came with his contract; and c) “a loosey-goosey era” just doesn’t cut it.

Rodriguez’s other interview sin, as it were, was blaming the messenger — in this case, Selena Roberts of Sports Illustrated, who broke the story about A-Rod’s steroid use and about whom Rodriguez apparently spun some whoppers.

In a real confession, then, besides admitting his cheating and lying, Rodriguez would have to show contrition for breaking God’s injunction against “bearing false witness” (that’s Commandment No. 9, in case you’re keeping score at home.)

So, it won’t be easy. But if Alex can dig deep into his soul — and perhaps his pocket — thanks to John Paul and Benedict, a church indulgence can be his.

And just in time — for baseball’s indulgence of A-Rod and the rest of the steroid cheats has gone on long enough.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.

What have you done for us lately?

In 2006, when a certain former Houston Astros pitcher gave $3 million to Memorial Hermann to help build the Texas hospital’s sports medicine clinic, the facility was named the Roger Clemens Institute for Sports Medicine.

At the time, the pitcher in question said, “Throughout my professional career and my life with Debbie and our four sons, I’ve tried to promote the importance of family, good health and fitness.”

What a difference a couple of years, a steroid accusation, a catastrophic appearance before Congress, and — oh — news of a dalliance with a young Country-Western singer, can make.

In December, the hospital announced Clemens’ name was being dropped from the clinic. If you’re wondering, yes, apparently they’re keeping the money.

The University of Miami also is keeping some money — in this case, cash received from one Alex Rodriguez for the renovation of its ball yard, Mark Light Field. The diamond’s rededication and renaming — you’ll never guess what they’re going to call it — is set for Saturday — one week after A-Rod was revealed as a steroid cheat and a liar.

Why the renaming? Let’s just say there are 3.9 million reasons for it. So, goodbye, Mark Light Field; hello, Alex Rodriguez Park.

Despite the steroid news, Miami has no plans to cancel the dedication or the name change. For the life of me, I’m not sure if that makes the U more dishonorable than Memorial Hermann or less.

But back to Mark Light Field. According to hurricanesports.com, in 1974 the then-state-of-the-art field was built with money from a Hurricane booster named George Light, and the field was named after Light’s son, who died of muscular dystrophy.

But that was then and this is now. George Light and his son are both gone, A-Rod and his money are here.

Hmmm … I think I just answered my own question about dishonor.

Et tu, A-Rod?

So.

Alex Rodriguez joins the list of baseball stars linked to performance-enhancing substances — in this case, the anabolic steroid Primobolan.

The Sports Illustrated story breaking the news is relying on two anonymous sources with access to results from Major League Baseball’s famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) 2003 urine tests, taken to determine is the league truly had a steroid problem.

In case you missed it, it turns out it did.

With Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa all tainted for one reason or another, A-Rod was baseball’s shining knight — the clean bopper who would come along and eventually erase Bonds’ career home-run record, making the mark hallowed once again.

Guess not.

Of course, it’s possible a mistake has been made and Rodriguez is getting a bad rap. He could always deny taking ’roids, claim the story is dead wrong. Asked about the report, Rodriguez replied, “You have to talk to the union. I’m not saying anything.”

Sorry, Alex. I believe you just did.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/sports/baseball/08arod.html?hp