Come To Think of It...Joe Torre Was Right: A-Rod Really Is A-Fraud

Well, what do you know? That reference in Joe Torre's new book The Yankee Years about Alex Rodriguez being referred to as "A-Fraud" turns out to have been quite the omen after today's breaking news.

The reference was apparently made jokingly. But after today, it's no joke.

The joke is on us as baseball fans.

For SI.com is reporting that A-Rod tested positive for two anabolic steroids in 2003, when MLB was testing to see whether they needed to implement random drug testing in the sport.

A-Rod was the AL MVP in 2003.

Um...looks like there was a good reason they implemented it.

It was also reported that A-Rod was informed of his positive test. Yet, armed with the assumption those tests would never be made public, A-Rod continually denied ever having used 'roids.

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

No penalties were imposed by baseball for the testing in 2003. But the penalty in the form of a stain to A-Rod's legacy is permanent.

If writers won't vote for Mark McGwire because of steroid allegations, and have publicly said they wouldn't vote for Roger Clemens, then to be consistent, they can't vote for A-Rod when his time comes, either.

Imagine a Hall of Fame without the best players from this era. For no one is safe from speculation now.

Hell, Greg Maddux is probably the only guy who would surprise me at this point. 

This can't be good news for MLB, who wanted A-Rod as its eventual home run king to wipe away the stains of Barry Bonds from the record books.

Alas, if it happens, it will be just another cheater to hold the sacred record.

I think they should just put an asterisk next to the entire era, for we don't know who cheated and who did not.

For example, can anyone really say with any certainty that Albert Pujols or Manny Ramirez are totally clean?

And we all know now that pitchers were perhaps the largest segment of abusers. It aided them in recovery time and added velocity.

And just because someone didn't have big muscles doesn't indicate that they never used performance enhacing drugs. Benefits could be gained even without lifting weights. 

For a sport in which statistics matter so much, this is disturbing news for sure.

Jose Canseco, like him or not, continues to look like Nostradamus. Last year, he said that A-Rod had a secret he was hiding. Gee, I wonder what he meant?

Come to think of it, there has been rampant cheating and lying. That's two strikes. Three strikes, you're out. Good job, Bud.