Why It's Time To Leave A-Rod Alone

As many fans of sports grapple with how to define and end the Steroid Era, there's one question that I'm sure is popping in everyone's minds:

"Can we believe any baseball player at this point?"

If there was an untouchable entity in the realm of clean baseball, it was Alex Rodriguez. He was supposed to be our savior after Tainted Home Run King Barry Bonds was suspected and convicted in the court of public opinion of steroid use.

As the report emerged of Rodriguez's steroid use, my heart and belief in baseball started to go with his credibility. I must admit I fell into the media trap and started to label him "A-Fraud" and a liar just like everybody else did.

But wait a minute. Is A-Rod really bad as we painted him?

Didn't we label this the "Steroid Era" for a reason? Why are we even remotely surprised that he was a user of some kind of performance enhancer?

He was primed and raised as a baseball star at the same time these guys were hitting all of the home-runs and filling stadium seats.

When McGwire and Sosa were cranking out HR's, we loved it, A-Rod loved it and the commissioner himself loved it.

He claims after the fact that he wanted to have steroid testing a long time ago, but who really believes him?

If he wanted steroid testing so bad, wouldn't that have vilified the game and the very players who were filling the stadiums and bringing in millions of revenue for the MLB?

Of course it would've.

Therefore, Bud Selig isn't dumb and he knows what his best interests are. Let this play out, make the money, and then jump on the opposing side when it all begins to crumble.

Even have President Obama make a negative statement about it. All like we didn't know what was going on.

Deep within our minds, we knew. Whispers of this started to come into our ears when Bonds hit No. 600, when Sosa and McGwire shattered Roger Maris' record and when A-Rod became the superstar he now is.

Steroids were a part of the baseball culture, and whenever that happens, people hop on the back of the bandwagon.

It's almost like the whole "everybody's doing it" thing. If all my friends rap, I rap. If all my friends smoke pot, I smoke pot. Look at Michael Phelps. He got caught in that same type of arena, only he's famous and will get roasted for it.

Alex Rodriguez was merely a puppet in over his head. He was around people who were already established players who were doing this "trend" if you will.

When you see your superiors doing something that quite honestly at the time was not illegal, even though they knew it was cheating, you didn't think about being caught and frankly didn't know you ever would, you step on the go button.

Rodriguez, Clemens, Pettitte, Bonds and everyone else were doing just that. It was an accepted culture amongst players, and a code that they all knew about.

There are many players looking at Rodriguez and saying to themselves, "man, I hope my name isn't one of those 107 because if so how do I explain this?"

Advice for you: you can't.

There's no way you can explain this behavior anymore. Everyone has suddenly forgot how they fell into peer pressure or group traps. They've forgotten the strength of numbers and how when people you look up to are doing something, it's hard to detract.

A-Rod is human.

He is not a machine, and is therefore prone to making the same mistakes we do.

Was he extremely naive or just plain silly for injecting something into his body because everyone else did it?

Of course he was.

Was he lying when he said his cousin did it and he had no idea what was going into his body, only to name the substance a week later?

Of course he was.

Did he make the right decision telling the world that he was guilty?

Of course he did.

We must look at A-Rod and use him as an example for our children that it's not okay to follow the crowd.

We all know that Rodriguez is extremely talented and didn't need to enhance anything. If someone denies that, they're lying to themselves.

His character needed to be stronger, and that's the real issue. He didn't take the enhancing 'roids because he needed them, but because he wanted to be part of something he felt was greater.

A-Rod is a very emotional, sensitive guy. He felt that he could be even better, and the pressure from the media and his contract made him have a burning fire to prove them all wrong.

Unfortunately, his sensitivity and lack of belief in himself made him choose a road and path that had a disastrous ending that was easily predictable, even by him.

He knew what this road would lead to, but took the quick results over what would happen when the public found out about the results.

That's why I say leave A-Rod alone.

He made a ridiculous mistake that he will pay for the rest of his life mentally, and possibly physically and that's enough.

Many guys made mistakes in the Steroid Era, all for the same reasons.

Rodriguez has enough grief to deal with inside. He doesn't need this to drag on while we ask every question we can think of.

Just accept the fact that he used, hundreds if not thousands of others used, and we can only put this era behind us once we stop questioning it.

For the last time, I say let the Steroid Era end with it's most celebrated do-gooder falling villain to its poison.

It's the only way.