I can’t get A-Rod’s recent admission of steroid use out of my mind. I listened to his “admission” and he claimed that he was both naive and stupid for this transgression. However, despite his “admission” of guilt in putting a “banned substance” in his body, he essentially refused to take responsibility for what he did. He claimed to have “no knowledge” of exactly what steroid he was using. Are we to believe that this professional athlete who is so precise in every aspect of his training took a cocktail of unknown performance enhancing drugs? I think not!
What I don’t really get is, are all of these professional and elite athletes so morally corrupt that cheating and lying about it are as routine as fielding a ground ball? “So I took a little bit of steroids for a little bit of time, but it’s really no big deal. I mean, that’s all in the past. I don’t want to talk about the past!”
It doesn’t seem like rocket science to me to understand that taking performance enhancing drugs is cheating. Breaking the rules in this way is called CHEATING. That’s C…H…E…A…T…I…N…G! The steroid user cheats his opponents, he cheats the fans, he cheats his teammates, he cheats his organization and he cheats the game. When the cheater is caught and he lies about it the way A-Rod has done in the past in televised interviews, he is merely showing the full extent of his corruption. Lying and cheating are close friends and bedfellows.
So why cheat? Forget this thing about all the pressure to perform at a high level. To me, that’s a bullshit excuse for professional athletes who bend the rules. Cheating is a game unto itself. It takes the sport out of sports and leaves you with nothing but a sham. All the numbers that have been put up in baseball over the past decade or so are a HUGE joke. McGuire! Sosa! Bonds! And now A-Rod. Steroids make a complete mockery of all of their accomplishments and overshadows the way we all look at these athletes both as performers and individuals.
And here’s the really sad thing. I honestly don’t know how much these drugs really improved the above mentioned athletes’ performance. Most of them probably would have put up monster numbers anyway. A-Rod was the best player in baseball without the drugs! He didn’t even need them the way some athletes claim they do to be competitive.
However, given the fact that these athletes knowingly juiced when it was against the rules is the part that I can’t seem to get beyond. You can’t have any lasting or meaningful relationship with anyone who is dishonest, who lies and cheats. Whether that relationship is with a spouse or partner, a teammate, the fans or a coach doesn’t matter. Dishonesty changes everything! Without trust you’ve got NOTHING!
Speaking of which, what about their reputation, their good name? I feel sorry for A-Rod. He wasn’t exactly the most popular professional baseball player before all of this happened. His admission of guilt and the wishy-washy way in which he’s approached it can only guarantee that during this coming baseball season, he’ll be, like Barry Bonds, a real “fan favorite.” Should make for an interesting spring!
