Come To Think of It...A-Rod Linked to Known Steroid Supplier in 2007

Alright, so it appears I was wrong about A-Rod's cousin. And, in fact, the cousin does actually exist. But apparently I wasn't wrong about the lying.

And the cousin, even if he does exist, was merely a decoy to the real supplier.

According to a report in the New York Daily News, Alex Rodriguez spent the 2007 baseball season travelling with a known steroid supplier. He was his personal assistant, or trainer, or who the hell knows what they called him.

Whatever his "title", Angel Presinal went around the country with A-Rod, staying in different hotel rooms of course (wouldn't want to start another rumor here), and would only meet with Alex when he was with the cousin in the hotel room that the cousin and Presinal shared.

That way, there was no direct link to A-Rod and this guy, who incidentally, had been banned by major league baseball because of his known involvement with steroids.

This was the same guy who was caught holding the bag of steroids that supposedly belonged to Juan Gonzalez. Remember that story?

Coincidence? I think not. I think A-Rod was doing steroids much of career and didn't actually stop in 2003 as he claims.

In fact, I believe there were three reasons that A-Rod chose to spin his story the way he did.

First, he wants to preserve his legacy as much as possible so that he can get into the hall of fame someday. So he claims to have "only' spent three years, from 2001- 2003 getting injected with performance enhancers, thus "proving" to the world that he can still produce at a high level when clean.

Second, he did not want to soil the reputation of the New York Yankees. Yes, I did steroids when I was with the Texas Rangers because of all of the pressure I felt from signing that huge contract. But as soon as I joined the Yankees, I stopped.

How convenient.

Finally, and possibly the main reason, is that there is a five year statute of limitations on prosecution for bringing in illegal steroids into the country. Let's see, 2003 plus five equals...well what do you know? Oops, too late.

I'm not saying they would have a case against him anyway, but just to be safe, it's a nice touch for A-Rod to cover all his bases like that.

Look, I'm just as anxious as you are to have all this go away. But until these guys start telling the truth, the media will continue to probe and we will continue to have to hear about this.

And fans like myself, who feel betrayed by these cheaters, will continue to write about it.

Hey, I know there has always been some form of cheating in the game. Heck, spitballs, amphetamines, sign stealing and other methods of gaining a competitive advantage has existed throughout the game forever.

But until recently, it hasn't affected the "sacred" records like the home run record. And it really hasn't affected hall of fame selections.

But now, an entire generation of supposedly great players all have an asterisk next to their names. Many may not make it to the hall of fame. And there are questions as to who was clean and who was not, and how do you know?

It's like a whole era of baseball never existed.

It's The Twilight Zone of major league baseball.

Oh yeah, we can be fairly certain that Greg Maddux never took steroids. Or Frank Thomas. Or (insert name here). But really, how do we know for sure?

Well, we don't. And that sucks.

Maybe it doesn't bother you. Well, that's OK, it's your choice. But it bothers me.

We've invested time, energy, and yes, money on watching and rooting for players and teams, only to find out that much of it has been a big, giant, fraud.

Perhaps being so emotionally invested in professional sports is not worth the effort. Come to think of it, maybe that's the lesson learned.