Why Jayson Stark Is Wrong About Alex Rodriguez and Steroids

We've lost the opportunity for Alex Rodriguez to restore that: the meaning. The relevance. The power. The romance.

He held that opportunity in his hands. And now it's gone.

Who put that burden of responsibility on A-Rod's shoulders to begin with?  You and your colleagues, Mr. Stark.  Some of us here never believed for a second that a guy like A-Rod was Christ reborn as a ballplayer.

Why was A-Rod expected not to cave into the pressure that other superstars did?  Why was he pinged as the golden angel in the midst of this madness?

He's failed to live up to the expectations you set for him because those expectations were completely unrealistic.  Perhaps it would have been better to wait until all the evidence had been collected before you chose him of all people as the savior of the game. 

He was the one man on the planet with the chance to resuscitate the greatest record in sports. He was the one man on the planet with the chance to rebuild his sport's sacred bridge to the glory days.

The glory days of segregation and spitballs?  Of corked bats and game fixing?  Of treating the talented individuals who invest their lives in providing entertainment for millions like complete and utter crap?

And now he'll never get that back, no matter how many more home run trots he makes.

I do have some measure of sympathy for him, though. We can't forget that these test results were supposed to be confidential. So the leaking of the results of those tests -- particularly his tests -- is outrageous on one level, suspicious on another.

I also know that he isn't alone. I know there are 103 other positive tests on that list, capable of being leaked any minute. And I know there are hundreds of other players who never failed a test, who never have had a finger pointed, who never have come up in this conversation, who are just as guilty of performance-enhancing-drug use as the names we spend all our time talking about.

So even now, it isn't particularly fair to single out A-Rod. I'll concede that.

But those are all just subplots to the big show, under A-Rod's big top. And that show isn't going to close for the rest of Alex Rodriguez's life.

He should resign himself to that before he takes another step or utters another word. The yolk is never going back inside the egg. So whatever he does next, however he explains himself this week and next week and for the rest of his career, all he can possibly accomplish is damage control.

But the damage itself already has been done. And it's never going to be undone.

That's the crime here. Oh, it may not just be his crime. It's a crime shared by everyone who allowed the steroid era to exist and persist. But that doesn't make our man A-Rod any more innocent, either. No, in some ways it makes him even more guilty.

He was a special player, with a special gift -- and an even more special opportunity: He was the man with the opportunity to reconnect baseball's once-indelible dotted line between past and present, between great-grandsons and great-grandfathers, between his home plate and your hometown.

And now he's squandered that gift, squandered that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

So weep not for what A-Rod has done to himself.

Weep for what he's done to his sport.

No!  I refuse to weep.  I refuse to buy into this baloney that the league was once pure and has suddenly been corrupted.

The game of baseball it beautiful and perfect—but Major League Baseball has many stains on its historical record.  This is merely the result of the human beings who have graced its fields and offices over the years and the flaws that all-too-often complement their strengths.

No one—not A-Rod, Barry Bonds, steroid dealers, owners who turned a blind eye, or even pompous media personalities using their fame to manipulate the mass public about the implications of this mess—can alter the history of baseball.  History, after all, is immovable.

What can change is our attitude towards that history.  The choice is ours:

We can follow Jayson Stark in declaring that Performance Enhancing Drugs will forever tarnish the sport.

Or we can be a little more optimistic and, while admitting that steroids were a setback for this great game, refuse to let their prevalence infiltrate our interest in the past.

To those who choose the former, I wish you the best of luck.

For those of us who refuse to let MLB history die: let the journey continue.

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