Thursday can't come soon enough; I'm really tired of this whole "off-season" thing. I mean, does any really care where Manny ends up anymore? I mean, as long as he's far, far away from Fenway Park, it's alright with me, and all signs point to the Dodgers, or possibly the Giants [although I have learned never to count the Yankees out].
In other news, no one is surprised that Alex Rodriguez allegedly failed a steroids test in 2003. Mazz has a good piece about it in the Globe today: at this point, we can only guess who else is on that list. Would anyone be blindsided if it came out Nomar was using while in Boston? We already know about Mo Vaughn and Eric Gagne. Who else could be on the list? Jason Varitek is looking smaller these days, though the official explanation is that he never regained his weight after an illness early last season.
The point is, the time to point fingers and gloat has passed [OK, maybe we can gloat a little]. Until the other 103 names on that list with A-rod are released, I for one will be operating under the assumption that at least one of my childhood heroes was a juicer. The sad truth of it is that more players than we would like to believe were artificially enhanced, and that the most famous among them never needed to use. Roger Clemens would have been a shoe-in for the hall before he ever met Brian McNamee. Barry Bonds was one hell of a player, and would have been remembered fondly if he had never heard of BALCO. And A-rod is a natural. As much as it pains me to say it, Alex Rodriguez might be one of the most athletically gifted ballplayers of his generation. However, once you get linked with steroids, your legacy is forever tainted [just ask Mark McGwire's brother].
Hopefully baseball can recover from this [although, if more people boycott, I might actually be able to get tickets]. But the "Steroid Era" is not over. It won't be over until every last player who used has retired. And A-rod still has nine years with New York.
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