A-Rod Haters Juiced with HGH (Hardened Glaring Hypocrisy)

“The argument about the integrity of records is overwrought. A record is only a story of what happened. A hitter on steroids hit those homeruns, just as a spitballer struck out those hitters and a bat corker got those extra hits. The statistics aren’t tainted; they just require us to remember their context, as has always been true. Every era’s statistics are skewed.”        

Baseball during segregation. Oversized ballparks. Trick pitches. Would Lou Gehrig pile on the hitting stats like he had if he was facing today’s pitching aces? What about Gaylord Perry? Would he have even been a household name without his outlandishly illegal go-to pitch? Should he be booted from the Hall? Should Gehrig’s numbers be qualified with an asterisked footnote: “All white league”? 

Bottom line: we only know of three years A-Rod juiced. Which means that the years he was presumably clean demonstrate that he was Hall of Fame caliber before he “cheated.” He belongs there. And furthermore, A-Rod’s still playing ball. If MLB doesn’t want to ban him from the sport, then Cooperstown shouldn’t ban him from the Hall. 

(Speaking of, Pete Rose makes me sick.)

So, there it is. In the words of Will Ferrell post-debate in “Old School”: What happened? I think I blacked out. 

(Now, there’s an excuse I would like to see more of.  And if at all possible, perhaps less of the throw-your-relative-under-the-bus fad that’s sweeping professional sports.)

Fifty more days til Opening Day in the Bronx and only 40 days til the first Yankee game (at Baltimore.) So enjoy the next month and a half, haters. You can use the Yanks’ electromagnetic attraction to controversy to stymie your own burgeoning insecurities. Marinate in another person’s mistake, and excoriate the “morally reprehensible” people who defend him. 

Go ahead. It’ll be twice as vindicating when the Yankees are the 2009 Champions.  

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