Rodriguez
Takes His Case to the People – Keeps Mum in Hearings
"I
know that I am in a position where I have to earn my trust back. And
over time, I am confident that, at the end of my career, people will
see this for what it is -- a stupid mistake and a lesson learned for
a guy with a lot of baseball to play.” - Alex Rodriguez, during
2009 press conference where he admitted to using PEDs from 2001-03.
JAN
14th, 2014-Well,
well, well.
Everyone's
favorite Yankees third baseman is in the news, again. Shockingly, the
current situation does not show him in a good light.
Let's
take a look back at 2009, when Rodriguez found himself in a similar
situation: A-Rod was dealing with the accusation (which he vehemently
denied) that he had used PEDs during the 2001-03 seasons while a
Texas Ranger. After a great many assertions from both the accused and
the accusers, Rodriguez finally came clean (or, at least, as clean as
he could be):
"As
I discussed with Peter Gammons, in the years 2001, '02 and '03, I
experimented with a banned substance that eventually triggered a
positive test.”
As
he put it initially in an admission that was rather late in coming,
he 'experimented' with a banned substance. He doesn't just come out
and say 'yes, I purposely
used what I knew to be
an illegal, banned substance', nor does he state what the
aforementioned substance happened to be. More on that, later.
What
he does say, however, is every bit as interesting:
"Going
back to 2001, my cousin started telling me about a substance that you
could purchased over the counter in the DR [Dominican Republic]. In
the streets, it's known as 'boli' or 'bole.' It was his understanding
that it would give me a dramatic energy boost and [was] otherwise
harmless. My cousin and I, one more ignorant than the other, decided
it was a good idea to start taking it. My cousin would administer it
to me, but neither of us knew how to use it properly, providing just
how ignorant we both were.”
In
this part of the statement, it seems pretty obvious that he's trying
to paint a picture of two naïve young men who were using a substance
they didn't fully understand. I guess it's just hard for me to
swallow; if I were a pro athlete making 25 mil a year (or more), I
think I'd want to know every detail about every 'substance' that went
into my body. But I guess that's just me.
Anyway,
it almost seems like Rodriguez wants the public to believe that he
might not have known just how serious was the situation in which he
put himself. But then comes this gem:
“It
was pretty evident we didn't know what we were doing.”
To
whom, exactly? Moving on:
"I
stopped taking it for several reasons: In 2003, I had a serious neck
injury and it scared me half to death. I was scared for my career and
truly my career after baseball -- my life out of baseball. Secondly,
after our voluntary test, all the players voted for a Major League
Drug Policy. At that time
it became evident to me how serious this all was (emphasis
added) . And I
decided to stop then. Since that time, I've been tested regularly.
I've taken urine tests consistent with Major League Baseball and
blood tests for the World Baseball Classic. Before walking in here
today, I took a test as part of my physical, and I will take another
blood test next week for the Classic.”
“'At
that time'”, he is quick to acknowledge, “'it became evident to
me how serious this all was.”. So it was only then that you
realized just how serious things had become?
He's
asking us to believe that he was, essentially, led down this path by
an outside influence. The blame lies somewhat more heavily on those
who were involved in convincing him to take these substances, right?
And
by the way, what was it that he took? Rodriguez says that the street
name for the substance is 'boli'. T.J.
Quinn of ESPN wrote an analysis of that statement on February
25th,
2009:
“'If
boli refers to Primobolan (a brand name for methenolone), it
can't be purchased over the counter in the Dominican Republic
(emphasis
added). So how did
they get it? The black market?'”
I
think the emphasis is, in this particular statement, especially
important. It seems to me that critics of PED use seem more often to
focus on the potential benefit these drugs offer to the players who
use them. The fact that obtaining said drugs without a prescription
or by methods which don't involve being under a doctor's care is
glossed over in favor of shining the spotlight on stats and records.
A
transcript of A-Rods news conference was posted on MLB.com on Feb
17th,
2009.
Rodriguez gives a curious response to one question posed to him by
the MLB reporter in which he was asked why he stopped using PEDs
(supposedly) when he came to the Yankees in 2004:
“'I
keep going back to -- I entered the game when I was 18. For a lot of
people, if I had a son I would definitely recommend going to college
and having an opportunity to grow up. And I didn't. I felt like I
said in my statement that after I had my neck injury and after I
realized MLB was implementing tests that this was serious business.
It was time to grow up. Since, I've realized that I didn't need any
of it.'”
Ah,
so now we have the reason A-Rod used PEDs: immaturity. In essence, he
suggests that entering pro ball as a teenager somehow inhibited his
ability to grow into a mature, responsible adult. I don't even know
how to respond to that.
He
goes on to blame his PED use on being 'young and stupid', which is a
point I'm not even going to attempt to refute. He most definitely
was, in some ways, young and stupid for being involved with what he
himself tells us was something he didn't fully understand. He even
says that he didn't KNOW that the substance in question was steroids:
"'I
didn't think they were steroids at the time. Again, that's part of
being young and stupid. It was over the counter...
OK,
that's
a lie. If it WAS Primobolan, then it most definitely was not over the
counter. But I digress:
“'...it
was pretty basic and it was really amateur hour. It was two guys, we
couldn't go outside, who couldn't ask anyone, didn't want to ask
anyone. We went outside team doctors, team trainers. It was two guys
doing a very amateur and immature thing. We probably didn't even take
it right. Like I said in my statement, we used to do it about two
times a month...'”
To
me, this is a veiled attempt at suggesting that he shouldn't be held
fully accountable because he was too ignorant to know how to take the
drug that (again, I say) he readily admitted to not understanding
fully. Moving further on:
“'I
don't even know if that is proper. So when this gentleman asked me
about how it affected us -- I'm
not sure we even did it right to affect us in the right way. All
these years, I never thought I did anything that was wrong.'”
In
other words, he wants us to believe that what he DID take, in the way
he took it, wasn't enough to cast doubt upon his statistics. Are we
kids, or what?
A-Rod
wants us to believe that he was seeing the professional sports world
through the eyes of a child; that he, as I said previously:
- Didn't know what he was taking
- Didn't know it was wrong, and
- Didn't even know if he was taking it properly
Does
anyone else find this hilarious? I've been told that I have a quirky
sense of humor, but I think it's a laugh riot.
I
could go on and on with the farcical sideshow that was Alex Rodriguez
in 2009, but I don't see the need. I mentioned all of these
statements to set the groundwork for analyzing his most recent
attempt at defending his naivete.
It
gets even more hilarious from here.
(To Be Continued...)
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