A-Roid Strikes Again
Sunday, July 19, 2009 17:29
I was watching some of the Detroit Tigers – New York Yankees game today and was bemused by the color commentary. After Alex Rodriguez hit his nineteenth home run of the season, the announcers discussed how impressive A-Rod has been this year, first coming back from his injury ahead of schedule and then hitting those nineteen homers in a relatively short period of time.
Really, is this all that surprising?
Doesn’t Human Growth Hormone speed up recovery from injuries?
True, A-Rod has not been linked to HGH. But he is a test-confirmed steroid cheat with a well-documented ego and history of behavior that would make the chance of Rodriguez flaunting the rules for a second time as much a probability as a mere possibility. And with the current limits on Major League Baseball’s ability to test for HGH… the question looms large in my mind:
Did Alex Rodriguez uses Human Growth Hormone to (at minimum) hasten recovery from his injury, regardless of whether he may have additionally taken it to improve his strength?
I challenge anyone to say with a straight face that they don’t believe this is at least a possibility. In this Steroid Era, almost everybody’s numbers have become suspect, sadly including those clean players simply because so many are dirty. Then consider a known dirty player — who can honestly say that suspicions of a repeat offense don’t arise.
You be the judge.
Mark
says:
July 20th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Based on his history, I'd say there is a very good possibility he used human growth hormone. If not HGH maybe something else. We'll never know for sure if he's completely clean.
Gairzo
says:
July 20th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
Nate, you cynical, faithless bastard!
These unfairly labeled athletes have never been given special treatment. Why are you singling them out now?
Give 'em a break…Geez…
It's not like we treat these guys like developing gods starting in Little League. Parents don't put them on year-round traveling teams. Teachers or school officials never let athletics supplant academics as the more important pursuit.. Boosters never invent loopholes to put a star recruit's mom into a new home. The media seldom clamors for fans to give thugs or cheaters another chance.
Do they?
I can't stand to watch a baseball game, anymore. Besides, it is very hard to understand the announcers, given the fact their lips are so firmly puckered on the players asses. Except for DIS writers, you'll never see an article in the big-league media like the one you just wrote.
The seven media conglomerates, which, in essence are one corporate monopoly have no vested interest in policing other monopolies.
Until we fix that problem, we will never get the message out to Bob and Mary in Kansas or Kentucky that their worship of athletes is misguided and potentially very dangerous
Nate Barlow
says:
July 20th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
I still watch countless baseball games whenever I can. I love the sport as a sport so much that I simply divorce my feelings about what the players may do from my enjoyment of the game.
I never understood the hero worship of anybody. But then my own ego may be too big to think much of people in that regards. That doesn't mean I don't have favorite players–my recent tribute to Tim Wakefield–but I'm not blinded to the obvious by fantasies.
I agree with you about the media. How about all that Michael Jackson coverage? Give me a break! Walter Cronkite must have been rolling over in his grave before he even died. Now there is someone worthy of three weeks straight intense coverage.