A-Rod For Sportsman Of The Year?

So, it's official, Derek Jeter won the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year Award. It's easy to understand why: The Yankees won the World Series this year, he's been an excellent player for a long time and nothing short of a class act.

What I can't possibly fathom, however, is the fact that Joel Sherman thinks that "If the competition were A-Rod vs. Jeter, it is not even close: Rodriguez is the Sportsman of the Year". He elaborates:

Alex Rodriguez should be the Sportsman of the Year. Before you hit me with how that title should go to someone who embodies the best in sports let’s remember that both Pete Rose and Mark McGwire have won the award, and before long we might remember that Tiger Woods has won twice.

Would you like a side of perspective to go along with your triple-stack of hindsight, Joel?

How does what happened with Tiger Woods over the weekend (if even the most salacious speculation is true) in any way alter whether he embodied "the best in sports" or more accurately, as the award says, was "the athlete or team whose performance that year most embodies the spirit of sportsmanship and achievement" in 1996 or 2000 years before he even laid eyes on his wife?

Pete Rose won the award in 1975 when he capped off a great regular season (5th in the MVP voting) by being named the the World Series MVP, ten years before he bet on baseball and almost 15 years before the rumors of those indiscretions came to light. Mark McGwire shared it with Sammy Sosa in 1998, six years before androstenedione was considered to be a steroid by Congress.

If Sports Illustrated had a crystal ball, perhaps they wouldn't have given the awards to Rose or McGwire in '75 & '98 (the Woods assertion is flatly ridiculous), but they need only a rearview mirror to realize that A-Rod was far from the right choice this year.

So what's Sherman's argument for Rodriguez?

Sports are publicly messier these days, and we should not run away from that. Heck, the initial broken story on Rodriguez’s steroid use was published by Sports Illustrated. He also touches on the advancement of sports medicine as he came back successfully from significant hip surgery months after undergoing the operation. And he was again a great player, this time finally in the postseason, as well.

In the end, A-Rod offers a story of second chances and redemption. He was a better teammate and was rewarded with the most positive feedback yet as a person while scoring that elusive championship.

So we should give A-Rod the Sportsman of the Year Award because he did steroids, recovered from an injury and was a "better teammate" (mostly because he was such a shitty teammate before)? How about the fact that Derek Jeter is widely assumed to never have done steroids, was not injured this year and has always been a great teammate?

Sherman has been pushing this story of the faux comeback of A-Rod for quite some time, but in reality, Jeter is the one who improved over last year in ways that can actually be measured.

Jeter raised his OPS+ from 102 to 132 and his UZR from negative to positive. A-Rod played in the fewest games he has since 1995 and had his lowest HR and RBI totals since 1997. But don't let the facts get in the way of a good story, Joel.

The award doesn't say anything about "second chances and redemption" it rewards "sportsmanship and achievement" and both of those things Derek Jeter has - and has had for a long time - in spades.

Why Couldn't It Have Been Ortiz?

As a Yankee fan, there is an element of schadenfreude in discovering that Manny Ramirez has tested positive for performance enchancing drugs. A former member for the Red Sox, who everyone assumed was clean, isn't. But this isn't good for baseball, and it really doens't help the Bombers either. The longtime Yankee destroyer now has a rather large blemish on his resume, but I can't help but think the Sox got off easy on this one. 

Testing has been in place since 2003 and only this year did Manny get busted. He has already pointed to the fact that he has taken and passed about 15 tests that have been administered to him in an attempt to contain the usage to this year, when he was conveniently not with the Red Sox. Everyone will speculate, but until the rest of the '03 test results are leaked with his name attached, there is not going to be any evidence that he was using before this. 

[Sidenote: How long until someone comes out with a Selena Roberts' style expose on Manny? It seems like there is a lot of money to be made in digging through accused steroid using baseball player's pasts these days. I don't think it would be too difficult to dig up some charming anecdotes on him, and I'd just love to know how much he tips at Hooters! Anyone want to give me an advance?]

How is the three-way trade with the Pirates and the Dodgers looking for the Sox now? Manny is gone for 50 games. That's over $7M of his $20M salary. Yes, Boston had to pay a lot of his freight and part with prosepcts, and Manny has been on fire since joining the Dodgers (.380/.490/.710 = 211 OPS+). But his replacement, Jason Bay has a solid (.299/.410/.559 = 145 OPS+) line, and that is presumably without the benefits of whatever drug Manny tested positive for.

In addition, the Sox organiztion has been largely spared the of embarassment of this going down with him still on the team. The graphics on SportsCenter and the MLB Network and ESPN.com will carry the Dodger's logo. He won't have to answer questions at Fenway about it. All those clips of him mashing in a West Coast, National League uniform really deflect the stigma away from their two World Series titles and Manny's WS MVP. That's what I care about: the Championships. 

Maybe he was only using with the Dodgers. Maybe he is really as dumb as he seems and accidentally took something that triggered a positive test. However, I would be inclined to believe that you don't pick up these sort of sloppy habits in your 17th season in the league. I just wish there was some proof. 

Deader Horse: A-Fraud Or Swine Flu?

Let me first say that neither of these stories are anywhere near as annoying as hearing about the economy every ten fucking seconds. It's one gigantic self-fulfilling prophecy that bleeds into every facet of life, including sports. The difference between that and the two things in the headline is that the economy actually affects everyone, and the coverage is not wildly out of proportion. 

Nothing that has come out about A-Rod has been remotely current nor does it alter the life course of anyone besides himself and his immediate family. We are talking about him supposedly taking steroids/HGH, banging strippers, leaving somewhat below average gratuity at Hooters and tipping pitches to opposing batters in games that were essentially already decided.

We find it upsetting or salacious or unfair or distasteful, but all at a certain distance. The same distance we use to view celebrity exploits, watch reality shows and gossip about co-workers. It's superficial bullshit that's not concretely correlated to your own life. 

Despite what every news organization on Earth would like you to think, Swine Flu isn't relevant to your life, either. There are roughly 290 confirmed cases in the U.S.  Your odds of contracting it (let alone dying from it) are something like a million to one. There's a significantly better chance you are a regular reader of this blog, for fuck's sake.

The only reason people talk about it is because, like "A-Rod", it grabs people's attention in a headline. Welcome to the internet, the home of 10 second attention spans where your stories better be eye-opening right off the bat. And a sure recipe for that is to include a disease named after something to do with animals. 

Mad Cow Disease, Monkey Pox, Bird Flu, Hoof and Mouth Disease and now the Swine Flu. Am I missing any? They haven't even found one pig with it yet. If they had been calling it the "N1H1 Flu" all along, do you honestly think the entire country would be aware of it? Attention Doctors: If you want to raise the awareness of a certain disease... just name it after an animal. A few suggestions:

• Deer Measles
• Canine SARS
• Horse Herpes
• Toad Rubella
• Sheep AIDS
• Spider Meningitis
• Duck Lupus
• Fish Trichinosis
• Bullfrog Fever
• Goat Gout

Pick any of those (especially Horse Herpes) and it will be a household name in two weeks. 

-----

Here is the reason Swine Flu is much more annoying to me: The result of the eventual saturation of coverage is a country who is fucking paranoid about something that is literally a one in a million shot. About 63,000 people in this country die from the regular flu every year. So far from Swine Flu? One toddler. 

On the other hand, now that the A-Rod firestorm is now reaching it's saturation point, people are starting get tired of it. We get it. He's phony and insecure and a cheap tipper (in more ways that one). Let's move on. It's putting things in perspective as opposed to blowing them out of proportion. 

Informal poll time! What say you, Fackers? 

A-Rod or S-Flu? Cheaters or Pigs? Clubhouse Cancers or Contagious Viruses? Character Assassination or Fear Mongering? 

[Note: I don't know that I would have the same perspective if I hadn't been reading Craig from Shysterball's takes on the Selena Roberts book. If you haven't heard his opinion on the matter, do yourself a favor and follow that link.]

This Just In: A-Rod Still A Dick

I know this may come as a shock to many of you, but according to multiple anonymous sources, Alex Rodriguez may not be a morally upright individual.

I'm guessing a fair number of you first heard of this establishment via this post back in February, so from the site's perspective we can't really complain all the dumb shit he's done. On the other hand, most of us are Yankees fans and we'd be lying if we said this makes rooting for the team any easier.

The timing of this story in The Post is actually pretty good for the Yanks and A-Rod. I'd bet that Selena Roberts was hoping that the details wouldn't drop until he was closer to rejoining the team, which is still about 10 days from happening. He will still have to answer questions, which he has proven he is astonishingly terrible at, but there won't be the same media orgy if he was in the locker room the day the story was published. Additionally, there is only one semi-shocking detail, which was already floating during when Roberts broke the 2003 test results story; he was supposedly already juicing in high school:

Rodriguez put on 25 pounds of muscle between his sophomore and junior years, and word was that his connection was a dog kennel owner.

A former high school teammate told Roberts the future No.1 MLB draft pick was on steroids and his coach knew it. Another student said the son of coach Rich Hofman admitted he saw Rodriguez use steroids.

Even if this is true, he'll never have to admit it, because there won't be any smoking gun in the form of a failed test. That said, if he was juicing all the way back then, A-Fraud was a truer moniker than any of this teammates could have originally intended. 

The article provides some quotes for the book which allege that he used steroids while with the Yankees. Would this surprise anyone? His contrived apology conveniently quarantined his admissions to his Texas years, to place them in the past. He didn't even apologize to New York fans, to make the line even clearer. Whether he did them in New York or not, he wasn't going to admit it, because he didn't have to.  That's the kind of advice you have an entire team of PR people and lawyers handling your crises.

What I found curious in this story were the seemingly ancillary details that were included. His alleged steriod connection in high school owned a dog kennel. Okay...? At the very end, the article adds:

He was even hated at Hooters, where he tipped the minimum 15%, the book says.

Have you ever been to Hooters? The service is fucking terrible. Yes, he's rich, but does that oblige him to leave above average tips under any circumstances? (And I believe the minimum would be 0%. Life doesn't occur inside a Zagat guide, douchebags.) Want a real tip from A-Rod, Hooters waitresses? Get naked. 

So why include these superfluous details? Craig from Shysterball and Circling the Bases says that Selena Roberts might be trying to frame A-Rod as a "generally bad person":

 It's one thing to say that A-Rod lied about certain things and broke certain rules. It's another thing to say that he did so because he's an inherently evil or damaged person. I have no problem with the former. Based on her track record, I am extremely skeptical of anything written by Roberts that posits the latter.

I guess that's the kind of angle one has to take in order to build a storyline and sell books. I've always respected Roberts' right as a journalist to write whatever sort of book she wants, but couldn't put my finger on what exactly seemed wrong about this one. As he so often does, Craig got right to the heart of the matter, and I think he pinpointed it for me. Want to dig dirt on A-Rod? Knock yourself out. But to try to paint him as a defective villian for the sake of making money doesn't seem quite right. 

In closing, I'd just like to echo some of Joel Sherman's advice to A-Rod:

Here is my last piece of advice for Rodriguez: Hit home runs. A lot of them. Most baseball fans, especially Yankee fans, care about that most of all.

If he struggles, he will be booed vociferously. If he prodouces, no one will give a shit. Let's play ball. 

JoePo On A-Rod's "Apology"

Having a full-time job and writing for this blog doesn't leave a whole lot of time to tend to my Google Reader. When I was waiting at my dentist's office today, I had a chance to catch up on Joe Posnanski's blog (from my iPhone), which typically gets put off extra long because the posts are always so deep and involved. He had an interesting take on A-Rod, and really shredded his apology. The post compares what he did to taking drugs and speeding, as I did yesterday, so I guess you'll just have to take my word when I say I only got to it today. Here is an excerpt:

I thought Alex Rodriguez’s "apology" was one of the most absurd shams of recent memory. I thought it was so pathetic that, for the first time, that ”A-Fraud“ moniker finally made some sense to me. As a baseball fan, I wasn’t mad at A-Rod when the steroid story broke. As a baseball fan, I was furious at A-Rod when he and his handlers put together this infomercial apology. I hope the children weren’t watching THAT.

Okay, it was incomplete. But remember Roger Clemens? How about Barry Bonds? Sammy Sosa? Mark McGwire? Rafael Palmero? Switching sports, Marion Jones? The "deny, deny, deny" precedent had already been set, so isn't it at least a step in the right direction that he didn't take the routes of any of those athletes?

When you get caught doing something, you are only going to admit to what what you have to. If you get pulled over on the highway, and the cop asks you how fast you were going, aren't you going to lowball it and see if he corrects you? If you get arrested with some drugs in your car and they find the bag in your glove box, are you going to direct them to the stash under your spare tire?

Yes, the apology was a little too tidy, and conveniently restricted his drug usage to Texas, the team is his least remembered for being a part of. But he was responding to a positive test in 2003, likely the only hard evidence that will ever emerge about his PED use. There is no reason for him to come out with anything else until it's absolutely necessary, although it could come back to bite him in a big way. As Joe implies above, it's a calculated risk.

When Selena Robert's book (Hit and Run: The Many Lives Of Alex Rodriguez) comes out, her publisher has already said it will contain more revelations about A-Rod's steroid use. Joe now works for SI and had this to say about A-Rod ad hominem attack on his colleague:

It was shameful. Pathetic. I’ll add this: I know that Selena has a history with A-Rod. And I know that she has a book coming out that, based on the cheery title (Hit and Run: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez) does not sound especially uplifting. But I’m not trying to defend Selena: She’ll defend herself fine. No, I’m talking about what this says to me about Alex Rodriguez.

It says that A-Rod, despite sticking to the script for most of the interview, lost his cool because someone is in the process of digging through his past for her profit, and it has probably impinged on his life. She has every right to do write that book, and if I had the access to some real deal dirt on a high profile celebrity and someone willing to pay me to write about it, I'd do the same thing.

A-Rod made an obvious misstep, but I don't think it really "says" any more about him than the fact the he used steroids, dated Madonna when he was still with his wife, frosts his tips, likes muscled strippers, is referred to as "A-Fraud" by his teammates or seemingly can't preform in the clutch.

A-Roid & Gammons Interview Reactions (With A Special Guest Appearance)

Not sure if anybody caught this, but it looks like Serena Roberts really has been stalking him. Check it out.
I know. It's pretty bad. But there really aren't that many pictures of her to choose from and no good place for her to be "hiding".

Some notes about the interview:

• I love how before he mentioned Selena Roberts by name he referred to her as "that lady from Sports Illustrated"
• He said she actually tried to break into his house and had documentation from the Miami Police to prove it, but Gammons didn't even ask to see it.
  
• He only apologized to his fans in Texas. Um, fuck that. You better feel sorry that you dicked over all of your Yankee fans over too. Because when you are cashing in $5M of our money for every legend you pass on the home run list, it's just going to dredge this shit up. If the Yankees were drafting your contract this offseason, they'd take those milestone clauses out in 2/3 of a second.
• Fiji Water? Nice choice.

• I originally thought that the reason he said he didn't know what exactly he was taking is that it was illegal at the time, and didn't want to incriminate himself. However, Craig from Shysterball was nice enough to answer my email and set me straight:

Me: Quick Question: Would there be a legal reason that A-Rod isn't admitting he knew what he took? Because they are/were illegal, etc... It sounds pretty stupid otherwise.

Craig: Quick Answer: No real legal reason I can think of. Even if he was doing crack, the statute of limitations on 2003 using would have run by now. My guess is that, in the permissive 2003-era, it was simply a matter of guys saying "give me some juice" and not really knowing what, exactly, they were taking beyond broad categories such as HGH or steroids.

Makes sense. Listening to the full interview, you get the feeling that he might have been trying to seem innocent because saying "give me some juice" is a lot more "naive" than talking about stacking Primobolan.

Anyway that was some quality television and despite the ribbing I've given him, he did come across as pretty genuine and remorseful and handled it pretty much as well as I could have hoped for. We're on the right track. Before the 2007 season, he got that pathetic Jeter friendship "issue" out in the open and had a banner year. It's a new season, in The New Stadium, and it's an odd numbered year. I'm predicting big things for Professor Purple Lips this season.