Is Nothing Sacred?

Everyone wants to weigh in on the Arod situation and I’m no different, I guess, but why do I feel as if I broke into his bedroom? It just really stinks that anybody gets smeared as Arod has been for taking a drug test that was supposed to be anonymous. That really bothers me. And I’m a Yankee-hater most of the time.

Major League Baseball botched the steroids situation from the very start. If anybody pays for their mistakes, it should be MLB. If any individual needs to be vilified, look to Bud Selig. Look to the Players Union too and its leadership. Their strategies, if they could be called that in their inanity, have failed. And now everybody will pay.

The Yankees will pay the most. As a Mets fan, and often-times Yankee-hater, life is sweet. But I wish I knew for sure my favorite Mets were clean. I don’t.

A couple of things make Arod’s situation unique. For one, it seems as if steroids didn’t really help him that much, as opposed to Bonds and Clemens and Sosa, for example. His performance may have improved as he weaned himself off them. You could say Arod botched steroids use.

A quick look at his career stats would seem to bear this out, that is, unless he also took steroids throughout the entire period from about 2003 and on. (THIS JUST IN_AROD HAS ADMITTED USE FROM 2001-2003) Just taking a look at OPS, the best measure of hitting and slugging, his numbers were as follows from 2003 through 2008: .995, .888, 1.031, .914, 1.067, and .965.

His wondrous 2007 season, in which he batted .314, with 54 homers and 156 rbi’s is suspect, of course, because we don’t really know when he stopped taking steroids. But I do know that he slimmed down a lot from 2006 to 2007. I can recall thinking Arod looked like a blown-up softball player in 2006. And his performance suffered in that year, batting only .290 with 35 homers (but he still had 121 rbi’s).

Interestingly enough, from his first full season with Seattle in 1996 through and including the year 2000, his OPS numbers were: 1.045, .846, .920, .943 and 1.026. He’s really been pretty consistent throughout his career, and it’s really difficult to isolate any drastically improved performance in a steroids year.

So what does all this mean? Baseball has been incredibly naïve AT BEST about the entire steroids question. You’d think that they’d have a greater sense of social responsibility than they have shown. (Talk about naïve, right)?

If there is a crisis for baseball, it’s one of credibility. A sport that absolutely obsesses about statistics suddenly finds itself without any meaningful ones. But, if there is a crisis for the rest of us, it’s the answer to the question “is nothing sacred”?

For it would appear that nothing is. The records aren’t sacred and our freedoms aren’t either. Confidentiality? Privacy? Forget about it. The only good advice you can impart to your children is “don’t do anything wrong, and if you do, admit nothing and don’t submit your sacred body to tests of any kind, drugs, DNA, or whatever comes next.

The U.S. Government has proven its heavy-handedness in its prosecution of Barry Bonds. Greg Anderson, Bonds’s trainer, went to jail for a year or so because he wouldn’t testify against his friend. The U.S. threatened his wife and even his mother. I still can’t believe I’m now rooting for Barry Bonds. But only to a certain extent.

I don’t think Bonds should go to jail, or even the hateful Clemens. But, for as long as they refuse to admit their cheating, for all these guys were cheaters, they should get no Hall of Fame consideration. Their records shouldn’t stand for their steroids years. Throw them out.

For those who have amitted their wrongdoing, I’d say they should go on as before, and if their non-steroid years stats should prove Hall-worthy, so be it. Translation: guys like McGuire, Bonds, Sosa and Clemens should just forget the Hall. But if Arod should just come clean about his involvement, let’s just subtract the wonder years and consider the remaining statistics.

I don’t think that’s so difficult. Hall voters can figure that out. They’ll vote their consciences. And it’s hard to have a clear conscience about someone who just continues to deny when all indications are otherwise.

Giambi and Pettite admitted their usage and life goes on for them. It’s somewhat disturbing that none of the true superstars have tried to come clean. But, if they did, they should get a break.

As a Mets fan, I must admit nothing makes me happier than to think the Yankees made a very stupid 300 million dollar investment. And they can listen to the jeering Arod will take for a decade. Cool.

But, then again, what if some of the other hundred or so names are some of my beloved Mets? It makes you think.

But what I think more than anything is that this country is beginning to stink out loud. Bush did a lot to kill our reputation. The Bonds perjury hearing is in a way quite like the Abu Ghraib torturing of prisoners. It’s heavy-handed and absolutely unnecessary.

Call off the Bonds hearings. He’s finished anyway. He was always a mean guy and that’s the way he’ll be remembered.

Hall of Fame? I don’t think it matters much to most people, except as a curiosity, another interesting factoid in sports, that, let’s face it, is in itself just a curiosity. Who are the best players in the land and what’s the best team of players in the land?

Which player called safe says, “but no, I was really out.” Every competitor, at least the rabid ones, will seek out every advantage. If steroid usage weren’t dangerous, I’d say to just forget about it. But it is dangerous.

But not as dangerous as are invasions of privacy and violations of ethics. Clean up baseball but clean up our government as well.