A-Roid

When the first A-Rod story broke, I was, as most baseball fans were, heartbroken. As routine as it has become for big name players to have their careers tainted by performance enhancers, I've developed some pretty tough skin for that stuff, but this one is different. While I'm in no way shape or form a Yankee fan, I was very much looking forward to the day Alex Rodriguez broke Bonds' all time home run record. Obviously now it doesn't matter if he gets there or not, the record will be asterisked either way. And whether it was fair to A-Rod or not, I think the public deserved to know despite the fact that the test was supposed to be anonymous.

While I'm glad that we have the truth about A-Rod, I think everything should have stopped there. The Gammons interview was absolutely necessary because at that time we needed to know what was going on. A-Rod fessed up, told when and why he was juicing, and revealed basically everything we needed to know.

The next step was finding out exactly what he was doing, and how often he was doing it. I think that was also good to know. That press conference at the Yankees' spring training facility was another necessary step because it confirmed and cleared up some things that the public needed to know.

Since then though, things have gone downhill. To be honest, I couldn't care less who A-Rod's cousin is. We don't need to know who was sticking needles in the guy's butt, the only thing that matters is that A-Rod used steroids. I don't need to know all these random details that just drag the whole story out more. It's almost as if the media is trying to guilt trip baseball fans, and I'm not sure what to make of it. There's no doubt that what A-Rod and Tejada and all these guys was awful for the game, but criminalizing these guys to this degree isn't good for baseball either.

I don't know if we're supposed to start boycotting baseball to punish the steroid users, or what. Personally, I think the steroid era is behind us and we should all move on; not forget about it, but move on. I think the public humiliation and Hall of Fame neglect is punishment enough. I'm tired of all the national media attention being devoted to the A-Rod story; this is the best time of year for baseball fans. It's when every team in baseball looks to be poised for a World Series run. Everyone thinks this is the special year for their team, and that's a beautiful thing. I just wish we could all be focused on that stuff rather than nitpicking A-Rod's every move from '01-'03.