Rodriguez, according to the Sports Illustrated report, tested positive for Primobolan and testosterone while playing for the Texas Rangers, but does it really matter where it was or when, or for how long? Unless he or baseball, or both, can effectively counter another damaging blow, Rodriguez takes his place in the ever-expanding enhancement holding pen, a shadow cast across his career.
Unlike McGwire, Bonds and Clemens, he isn’t going away anytime soon. A-Rod will play on, the way Jason Giambi did after it was leaked that he had come clean about steroids to a federal grand jury, the way Pettitte did after telling a Congressional investigation that he had used human growth hormone. It will be fascinating to see what strategy A-Rod embraces: silence, denial, attack or a Pettitte-like confessional.
Of course, Yankee fans will forget, as much as they can for a player they seem to love only when he hits the ball 450 feet. The Yankees will forgive because given the terms of the marriage, what else can they do except hope that A-Rod’s skills don’t erode at the chronological rate more common for ballplayers before they began spiking their spinach.
Even if he doesn’t slow perceptibly as he advances deeper into his 30s, if he continues to hit home runs at the same pace, it will all lead to another shallow celebration if it is true that he wasn’t always clean, if he really was A-Fraud.
You have to wonder: is that why his teammates and coaches called him that? Because they always knew he was too good to be true?http://www.nytimes.com
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seball/08sotaraton.html?_r=1
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