The explosive new book by Sports Illustrated reporter Selena Roberts which is being released today now includes the allegation that the petulant slugger Alex Rodriguez regularly tipped off opposing players what the next pitch was going to be.
Numerous Major League officials as well as ex players and commentators all expressed shock upon hearing the allegations, claiming it was an affront to the integrity of the game. Spare me the sanctimony because the integrity of the game has been under assault since the steroid era began and even the current testing regimen is essentially "window dressing."
Follow me below the fold for details:
Roberts also is reporting that Rodriguez used steroids in high school; tested positive in 2003; and used Human Growth Hormone as a member of the Yankees.
Full disclosure requires me to reveal I am a Red Sox fan and I detest Rodriguez. In my opinion, he represents everything that is wrong about the game of baseball as he is a selfish loaner steeped in grandiosity and that he is so good that the rules of the sport need not apply to him.
Even before the steroids rumors, the play in Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS when Rodriguez slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove seemed to epitomize the dirty win at all cost Pete Rose attitude.
As a life long baseball fan, I believe the steroid era began about a decade before most observers of the game suggest. According to the experts, the steroid era came about after the ill-fated 1994 strike when the game was desperate to win back many of the fans angry that the remainder of the regular season, playoffs, and World Series were cancelled, thereby costing the then Montreal Expos their best chance at winning the World Championship.
However, I believe the steroids era began in the mid-80's. Unfortunately, most observers were so blissfully ignorant that they repeated the meme of the decade which insinuated that the balls — not the players — were "juiced". Yeah, when light hitting Mariano Duncan hits an opposite field curve ball 420 feet for a home run off of Dwight Gooden in his Cy Young season of 1985 I knew something was fishy.
Of course, I wasn't the only one to suspect something wrong. But when you see Jose Canseco hit a broken bat opposite field home run into the upper deck of the Metrodome and mouth "what a joke "to his teammates, it doesn't take a weatherman to know which way the wind blows (thank you Mr. Bob Dylan). Tom Boswell of the Washington Post was one of the first reporters to suggest something was amiss in the game and it had nothing to do with the balls, how they were stitched and where they were made either.
Now, it isn't like A-Rod is the only star using or who has used performance enhancing substances. He is however, the most prominent, now that all-time home run hitter Barry Bonds is not an active player. Other stars linked to steroids include Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite, the late Ken Caminiti, Jason Giambi, etc. Moreover, a number of players are suspected but have never been linked through the Mitchell Report or other means include Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz and Pedro Martinez, among others.
The major difference between A-Rod and say Giambi and Pettite is that they admitted they used (although they did not specifically say what at the time) but Rodriguez continued to deny the allegations until this spring when he claimed it was only limited to the period he played with the Texas Rangers which was 2001 through 2003 when he signed a quarter million dollar contract.
This is what Boswell had to say this past winter about Rodriguez:
So, by amazing coincidence, the story Alex Rodriguez told us yesterday was exactly the kind of tale he would have to tell if he did not want a visit from anybody wearing a badge or carrying a subpoena. Who needs friends like the new ones that Barry and Roger have? His account of his steroids days in Texas was perfect -- too perfect.
Snip.
Boswell didn't buy what A-Rod was shoveling:
Rodriguez wasn't "young" when he got caught taking steroids. On July 27, 2003, he turned 28, not "24 or 25" as he likes to say. By then, he was in his 10th year as a pro ballplayer and his eighth full season in the majors. Long before, in '96, he was second in AL most valuable player voting. By '01, he was incredibly famous, seasoned, polished in public, one of the faces of baseball and rich, too. In Seattle, he earned millions before he ever signed that contract for a quarter of a billion dollars in '01.
Rodriguez claimed that he was young and naive which lead him to take steroids until he was 28 or so he claimed at the time. Given the new allegations by Roberts, was A-Rod unwittingly admitting that he used steroids as a high school phenomenon? Roberts mentions that Rodriguez claimed that he never used an aluminum bat in high school (which is currently legal in both high school and college baseball) despite photographic evidence to to the contrary.
I've talked to players who say he was using in high school, but if you want to discard that, you look at the physical evidence," she told the AP. "You look at a player who by his own coach's account was unrecognizable his junior year because his body had changed so much. Scouts didn't recognize him. In his sophomore year he could barely bench press 100 pounds. By his junior year, he was bench pressing 300 pounds."
Like Bonds before him, Rodriguez is now the self-appointed "poster boy" for steroid just as Canseco and McGuire played that role too. For that matter, Clemens is likely the poster boy for pitchers. The Rocket doth protest to much and his lawsuit against his former trainer will probably prove rather than disprove his entire career was tainted since he was a cheater.
Watching ESPN yesterday, baseball analyst John Kruk seemed shocked about the pitch tipping allegations. I find it laughable that the same people who ignored the steroids era until it was the worst kept secret in sports, claim to be offended by this afront to the integrity of the game.
This is how Roberts responded to questions about the pitch tipping:
"I don’t know the history of how it has worked in the major leagues, but from my reporting and the people I spoke with on the Rangers, what they noticed was a pattern of behavior by Alex over a pretty lengthy period of time, two or three years, where it just became more noticeable that his mannerisms on the field were different in games that were already over, its 10-2, something like that. When games were already decided, they noticed this behavior with Alex where he would do very obvious signs, presumably to an opposing hitter who would be a middle infielder on an opposing team, where they believed that he would tip the signs."
Rumor has it that Mickey Mantle's last home run in the major leagues late in the 1968 season came about because he was told the location and the type of pitch by the other team. The difference between A-Rod and the Mick is that Mantle in 1968 could barely walk, let alone run, and opponents and teammates alike respected him — something that Rodriguez has never enjoyed despite superstar status for more than a decade.
Besides not being respected, there is the undeniable fact that both of A-Rod's previous teams, Seattle and Texas, each were better the season AFTER he left. The other major criticism — steroids and performing enhancing substances aside — is that he has never won a championship and to say that he has failed miserably in the post season is a gross understatement. The arrogant Rodriguez is batting an anemic .097 since Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, which coincidently is when the Yankees began their historic collapse by blowing a 3 game lead and falling in seven to Boston. Moreover, 2004 represents the last time the Yankees even won a playoff series.
Obviously, Rodriguez is not the only player that has failed to deliver for the Yankees in the playoffs, but he is their most prominent and highest paid player so naturally the focus is on his failures. The way that the Yankees have built their team the past decade since their last World Championship in Y2K is that they have tried to field an All-Star at each position.
In theory that sounds great but it ignores the nuances of the game, like working the pitch count, advancing runners and putting the ball in play that helped the Yankees win four World Series titles in five years because they had unselfish players.
What do I mean? One of the biggest problems with the sport is that salaries calculated in arbitration are based on the statistics of comparable players. In this context, A-Rod is measured against other third basemen much as Derek Jeter is compared against other shortstops. Rodriguez is a selfish player, magnified by the fact that he has Scott Boras as an agent who is easily the greediest out of a bunch of greedy agents which is saying something. This means that if A-Rod comes up with a man on second with no outs, he tries to get an RBI instead of advancing the runner to third. Is he the only player that does this? No he is not, but again he is the most prominent player in the game.
My take on the pitch tipping is that it reinforces the selfish image of Rodriguez. I agree that he shows a total lack of respect for the game, but worse than steroids? Hardly.