Baseball is the first sport I truly fell in love with (or should I say, chose to fall in love with. Being from a football town, I had little choice in whether or not I would love that sport and had five Broncos shirts before the age of 1). My mom wanted to get us into a sport as kids and heard through another parent about a local church-sponsored league. It wasn't our church, or one we'd even heard of at that point, but they accepted anyone who wanted to play. There were boys leagues and girls softball leagues and they started us out in t-ball. (I don't understand how anybody could dislike t-ball. You take a home run whack at a ball that doesn't move. It's a perfect outlet for aggression. But I digress.) My sister's team was hilarious, like something right out of 'A League Of Their Own'. A few of them ran at a jogger's pace with their chests pushed out in front of them, a few more apologized after they tagged someone out and most of them saw the first few games as passing time until they got to the snack at the end. But then they got into it. They went from being a team that couldn't get out of its own way to falling just one game shy of making the playoffs. Fortunately, the boys and girls games were never at the same time so my brother and I got to go to all of our sister's games and she got to come to ours (our team was pretty good from the gate but ended up losing in the championship both years). After about three seasons, the league ended up having to close up shop due to lack of funding. By then my sister and I had moved on to other things but my brother has never lost his passion for baseball. He had to wait a year before getting to a junior high school that had a team but ended up playing baseball every season through college and for awhile afterward. He still works in baseball, as evidenced by his taking a line drive to the noggin a few days ago. My fanatacism has died down quite a bit. As a kid I collected baseball cards and jerseys, most of which I still have and hope to pass on someday (Miss N isn't a baseball fan as of yet and neither are my nephews so I'll probably die without ever having given my memorabilia to someone). My favorite player was Ken Griffey Jr., then of the Seattle Mariners. I still have no idea why I gravitated towards him. I think because back then my state didn't have a Major League team. A few years after the Rockies landed, my mom took us to a game at their newly built ballpark (which is still one of the most beautiful parks in the league without a bad seat in the entire place) to see Junior play. I. Lost. My. Damn. MIND. I had my jersey, my Mariners cap and my Ken Griffey Jr. rookie card on the off chance that I actually ran into him (I didn't). It was so exciting. I've been to a million baseball games in a ton of stadiums but that one game was probably the best.
Although hockey and football have since pushed baseball out the way and taken the mic, I still try to watch it as much as I can. Sadly, the game itself has been overshadowed recently by the Biogenesis scandal. For those who don't know, Biogenesis was a lab located in Florida that provided steroids to a number of professional athletes. The most well known cheater in baseball the past few years has been Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees. Coincidentally, Rodriguez began his career with the Mariners before departing for Texas and eventually New York. He was considered an overrated shortstop who could hit during his tenure with Texas so it's not surprising that the Yankees, known for having big bats that are mediocre in every other aspect of the game (except for Derek Jeter), just had to have him. The relationship has been rocky, at best. A-Rod has become known more for his personal drama and arrogance more than anything else. He's also been injured many times during his NY career. It's long been known that he's a user (perhaps 'former user' is more accurate) of performance enhancing drugs. He was a Barry Bonds-esque spike in his career numbers and in his physical features that does not happen to someone who isn't using something illegal. Unfortunately for A-Rod, Major League Baseball has decided to crack down and attempt to clean up the game. I consider the MLB's steroid problem to be a nightmare of its own making. They're similar to the Catholic church in that both organizations knew some dirt was going down but neither did a damn thing to stop it when it was most prevalent. They each chose to look the other way and now it is what it is; people don't trust the church and baseball fans don't trust the MLB. Baseball instituted a system for how steroid users would be punished should they test positive but it's only been used a handful of times. However, now that Biogenesis has fallen and its former operator is singing like a canary a number of players are expected to be suspended within the next few weeks, and A-Rod is the biggest fish in the suspension sea. Like any good narcissist, A-Rod isn't about to let anybody tell him what to do and has instead decided to make things ugly. It's rumored that baseball will hand down a 214 game suspension (the equivalent of about a season and a half) if A-Rod agrees to go quietly. If he doesn't, and so far he has refused to accept any suspension or admit to any guilt, the MLB will hand him a lifetime ban from the game of baseball. That means that he will not only be tossed out on his needle-scarred behind as a player, he also would be unable to participate in any Major League activities at any time in the future. Evidently, this is not a big deal for A-Rod because he's not one of those people who plays for the love of the game. He's in it for the money. The hold up with his suspension is not only his stubborn refusal to admit guilt, but also his demand that the Yankees pay him the remaining $100 million on his contract. If he accepts any kind of suspension, the Yankees can terminate his contract and will owe him nothing. He feels they should pay it because they've "abandoned" him during this steroid mess (FYI, he's not even playing in the Majors right now, the Yankees are refusing to let him come back from a rehab stint in the Minor Leagues until they see how all this shakes out). Rodriguez has made roughly $315 MILLION dollars during the course of his career. But I guess that's not enough. In his mind, MLB should leave him alone, the Yankees should pay him off and then he'll "choose" to retire. He and his lawyer are claiming that if the MLB doesn't back off and give him what he wants, they will take the case to a federal court. I highly doubt you could find a bigger narcissist on the planet that Alex Rodriguez. I hope baseball hands down that lifetime ban.
I had no idea baseball's steroid era was in the midst of its glory days when I was growing up. I think most of us want to believe the best of people and not think that others would jeopardize the integrity of something we love. Only in the past few years has the fallout from that era begun to take shape. Congress invited a number of players to testify about what they knew about steroids and it ended in spectacularly bad fashion for some of them. Rafael Palmeiro, a personable and talented dude, was one who testified and nearly teared up while denying he'd ever used anything illegal. Most people, myself included, believed him. Not more than a few weeks after that televised denial in front of Congress, he tested positive for steroids and was suspended. He never played again. Roger Clemens was also at that hearing, although he came off as very defensive from the start. He was eventually involved in a court case over his steroid use, one in which his own wife testified about having used HGH and having met the man who gave her this through her husband, yet has never admitted to having been a cheater. Meanwhile, his former teammate and former close friend Andy Pettite admitted to having used steroids in the past, admitted it was a mistake and apologized. He went on to play for a few more years after his admission and no one really brought it up again. But the steroid stench has followed Clemens and will for the rest of his life if he doesn't come clean. Another cheater/liar is Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers. His saga began last year when word leaked that he'd tested positive. He vehemently denied using anything and went to great extremes to say as much, even lawyering up the minute he heard about this alleged positive test and volunteering to be re-tested. Baseball was equally vehement in their belief that he had tested positive. In the end, the original test had to be thrown out because the chain of custody was broken by the person who was in charge of delivering it to the lab. But that whole situation always rubbed me the wrong way. Something about him just creeped me out and didn't find him credible. I was hardly surprised when he became the first player suspended in the Biogenensis scandal last month. His tune was much different this time as he issued a statement saying he'd "made some mistakes". What is it they say? It's not the act itself that gets you into trouble, it's the cover up. Pettite is evidence of that. Yes, he cheated but once confronted he was honest. He knew his reputation, his records were all shot to hell anyway and he accepted it and took responsibility for what he'd done. I think Bonds, Clemens and Rodriguez all truly believe they've done nothing wrong. Two of the three have set records that would guarantee them a spot in the Hall of Fame, if not for the steroids. You can't put a cheater in the HOF, forget a cheater who is also a liar. Hopefully, the MLB actually cleans things up and we're not still dealing with this 'roid crap in another decade. But if the past is any indication, we just might be.
