A Look at A-Rod's Juicing and a Brief Defense

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A Look at A-Rod’s Juicing and a Brief Defense

Filed on February 9th, 2009 in Baseball, Steroids ⋅ ⋅

In his first interview since Sports Illustrated reported him testing positive for steroids, Alex Rodriguez told ESPN that it is all true and that he was taking performance enhancing drugs from 2001-2003.

In that time, A-Rod produced two of his top three, and three of his top five home run seasons. In his defense, those were the only three years he spent in the very hitter-friendly confines of Texas’ Ballpark at Arlington. The final season, 2003, Rodriguez won the MVP for the first of three times in his career.

Rodriguez says that after 2003, he got clean and that all of his Yankee seasons have been legitimate. In his five seasons in New York, A-Rod has had two MVP years, which were statistically dominant, and three years that most players would call great, but for Rodriguez were less than stellar.

Rodriguez told ESPN’s Peter Gammons:

“When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure, I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day.”

Here’s the video of A-Rod confessing:

I can see the enormous amount of pressure, as he had just signed a record-setting contract, but what I don’t get is that if he was clean prior to going to Texas, how did he think he earned that contract? At what point do you put up the kind of numbers he was putting up in Seattle, and think you need to do more to justify your contract?

Being a .300/41/120-ish hitter AT SHORTSTOP means you don’t have to do anything to justify your $252 million contract. If he earned that contract clean, then he shouldn’t have had any reason to feel pressured to get on the juice.

Additionally, A-Rod turned 26 in his first year in Texas. With seven seasons in Seattle under his belt, that’s a bit old to be playing the “young and naïve” card, telling Gammons:

“I was young, I was stupid, I was naïve. And I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time. I did take a banned substance. And for that, I am very sorry and deeply regretful.”

I’ve defended Barry Bonds before, and I’ll offer some of the same defenses to Rodriguez. What they were doing at the time was not against the rules of baseball. With Bonds, there is more leeway than with Rodriguez, since Bonds was using compounds that technically didn’t fall under the steroid umbrella by most definitions. Bonds can legitimately claim that he was taking substances that were not against the rules of baseball, nor were they illegal. Since A-Rod claims to not know what he was taking, we can’t give him that benefit of the doubt.

Staying on the juice in 2003 is where he went wrong. In 2001 and 2002, baseball thought it may have a problem, but it wasn’t being addressed. By 2003, the survey testing was put in because they knew that something was amiss. You have to blame anyone who thought they were twisting the interpretation of the rules in 2001, 2002 or prior, but to still be juicing when the Steroid Era was under investigation is just stupid.

So is A-Rod right to admit that he took the PEDs? If you look at Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi, as opposed to Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, then yes, he did the right thing.

The guys that have admitted to taking steroids or HGH have been, for the most part, welcomed back with open arms. The guys who denied using them or stayed silent have been villianized by the fans of the game. Despite the crime being the drug taking, judgment is almost completely based on admissions of guilt. In that sense, A-Rod did the only thing he could to win backs some fans. Perhaps if he changes his contract to eliminate the home run bonuses, he’ll be even more accepted.

Rodriguez is competing with Bonds for several all-time records, most notably the home run record. For the last few years, everyone wanted to put an asterisk next to Bonds’ name and couldn’t wait for the poster child A-Rod to replace him at the top of the list. An admission of guilt here may bring A-Rod a similar asterisk, but people will have a reason to still root for him to top the “evil” Bonds.

Once again, I’ll offer A-Rod the same defense I offer Bonds when it comes to historical standing: They were both Hall of Fame players without the juice, and should be first-ballot Hall of Famers when their time comes. Perhaps the steroids helped with some home runs and helped keep them healthier, but the steroids alone can’t make someone the best hitter of all-time, which Bonds is. What A-Rod did in Seattle was enough to earn him a $252 million contract, and he did it playing shortstop. These two men proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that they are Hall of Famers, with or without PEDs.

And since neither of them tested positive after the league put real testing in place in 2004, then they can be frowned upon for their decisions, but forever included in baseball’s history and record books.

If the allegations are true with Bonds, I would still vote for he and Rodriguez on the first ballot of any Hall of Fame vote. When (apparently) the whole league is juicing, and you’re still that much better than everyone, you’re just that much better then them. Steroids can’t make you hit a curveball, and they can’t make you have the best hitting eye in the game. Bash their decisions all you want, but don’t let the Steroid Era deny us the privilege of having watched two of the greatest ballplayers to have ever walked on the diamond.

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