A Rod

While A Rod rehabs his hip labrum tear, just a few thoughts on the A Rod phenomena:

• When did he start using the juice? Could he have been using in high school? Why not?
  
• How naive is the media to declare certain players "steroid free" and "model players" as opposed to Bonds, Sosa, Clemens (yes, Clemens did them), etc? I don't get it. Ok, one guy I'm comfortable saying is clean is Jeter. But Manny? Junior Griffey? Rickey Henderson? I'm not being a chicken $hit and saying they did. But to make a blanket statement that they didn't? Foolish statement to make this day in age.
  
• I did a term paper in high school (a bloody long time ago) on steroids in sports. That was 20 years ago. Why did people think baseball was immune? The results from a study that was done years ago (as in, 10-25 years) revealed that athletes, when asked "would you take a substance that guaranteed you a gold medal but also only allowed you to live to 50?", overwhelmingly answered "yes." (That's roughly the results of the survey, I'll try and find the official results.) World class athletes are too competitive and would be leaving too much money on the table to resist. Especially if they can use under a doctor's supervision, safely.
  
• Think athletes are clean because they passed a drug test? Think again. Read on. They are called SARMs, they are better than steroids and, imagine, they are undetectable:

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/01/prweb1868364.htm

• I think Alex Rodriguez is a fantastic baseball player. By all accounts, he works incredibly hard at his craft, is a baseball junkie, your prototypical gym rat. He plays the game hard, doesn't take days or at bats off. Ok, he signed a massive contract, comes across as disingenuous with the media (perhaps he's not comfortable with the media, he's not the only athlete in that boat), and hasn't won a title. Baseball is a team game. Texas was AWFUL when he was there, despite Rodriguez putting up MASSIVE numbers. He came close with Seattle. So why does everyone hate this guy so much? It's not steroids; the hatred was there well before this news was uncovered.
• And if 1 guy's positive test is released, they all need to be, all 104. It's unfair otherwise. End of story.
  

For me, when A Rod went to NY, he became the enemy, on the field (as a Sox fan.) But what a player. Sorry, but baseball fans have got to respect his talent. And count me in as someone who wants to see him back at SS (partly because I own him in a fantasy league... but more because I'd like to see if he's still got the skills there. I'm thinking yes.) Just trying to get this thing with A Rod right.