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• February 7, 2009 -- A-Fraud (2)
• February 11, 2009 -- Cinderella Story (7)
• January 20, 2010 -- Mark McGwire’s Steroid Admission – MLB Baseball (0)
• August 5, 2009 -- Release the List! (4)
• May 13, 2009 -- Old School Baseball (0)

The absent father consumed with work. The clueless mother who doesn’t know the sting of her own words. The overly tattooed “bad-boy” who some women believe only they can change. The hot chick whose flirtatious ways with you were cool, but with other guys…

Inside our souls we yearn for that cathartic moment when our emotional investment pays dividends; when the objects of our affections realize their shortcomings and–like Cinderella’s pumpkin—magically transform from rusted Pintos into the sparkling Escalades our soul’s eye imagines them to be:

Wayward fathers tearfully beg forgiveness. Hurtful mothers publicly declare their pride. Shiftless bad boys become hard working, metro-sexuals. Flirtatious women turn into, loyal partners.

We’re so into the majesty of the ball, we forget about midnight.

This same emotional dynamic is found in our relationship to the athletes we root for, identify with, emulate—the ones we love.

We want to believe the most special athletes’ work ethic, dedication, and superior nutrition are responsible for their rise to the status of greatest of the greats.

We delude ourselves into believing impossible feats are possible; that all “records are made to be broken.” When athletes break cherished records by proportions unprecedented in human history, we tell ourselves, such an occurrence reflects the limitlessness of human achievement.

We believe in our hearts, a sprinter will one day run 100 meters in under seven seconds. We are convinced a golfer will drive a Titleist 400 yards; some yet unborn phenom—“maybe it will be my granddaughter”—will throw a fastball 130 miles an hour, and some equally gifted prodigy—maybe your grandson—will hit her pitch the length of three football fields.

Even as we doubt the great pumpkin-headed Barry Bonds may have taken steroids, we are absolutely sure Alex Rodriguez will eclipse Bond’s tainted statistics with records of legitimacy.

Our shiniest Escalades, we convince ourselves, will never turn back into Pintos.

You’d think, by now, we’d know better.

Human nature compels us to believe the lie that athletic competition embodies the spirit of passion, resilience and determination encoded into our DNA; exactly that instinct helps us survive life’s unpredictable dangers.

No way we can be wrong on that. Uh, uh…

If our “heroes” achieve beyond what we think they can, so can we…

If their success goes down in history; so will ours….Even if they live forever, only in fanatical memories; by way of our support, our energy, the power of our collective souls, we join them in their immortality.

Then the cold hand of truth bores into our sternum seizes our heart, and, ripping it free, squeezes out the last drop of blood in our being.

At least, no one can accuse me of being a drama queen.

Seriously, will it ever end?

“It” being athletes who cheat, deny cheating, and/or lie about cheating.

(It shouldn’t matter if A-Roid apologized; he can’t give us back the time we wasted believing in his version of the fairy tale.)

Perhaps the better question is, “when did it begin?”

Were there previous drinkers of Willie Mays’ “Red Juice?” Was Cy Young pitching to the blind? Did Joe Louis have a roll of dimes balled up in his handwraps? Did Chuck Noll—laughing like a mad Frankenstein—forcibly inject his offensive line with steroids? Did Michael Jordan have an “arrangement” with Satan? Did Wayne Gretzky hold out for a better deal from the Prince of Darkness so as not to be any less great than Mike?

After the recent A-Roid revelations (naming 103 more baseball players as cheaters) can we finally admit if the answers were “yes“ to all of the above questions, none of us would be surprised?

How sad, the relationships that take up most of our time, the heroes we choose to worship, usually end up hurting us in profound ways.

We better abandon our Escalades.

It’s way past midnight.

Next: Who is to blame?

• February 7, 2009 -- A-Fraud (2)
• February 22, 2009 -- VideoDeep: A-Roid No Surprise (0)
• January 20, 2010 -- Mark McGwire’s Steroid Admission – MLB Baseball (0)
• August 5, 2009 -- Release the List! (4)
• May 13, 2009 -- Old School Baseball (0)

But this, this is too good. A-Fraud tested positive for anabolic steroids in 2003, thus truly earning the nickname so frequently applied to him by his detractors and, apparently, his Yankees teammates (thank you, Joe Torre!) even though there’s no evidence–yet–that he was still on the juice once he arrived in New York.

Time to wipe that smug, whiney “Who me?” expression off your face, Alex.

Maybe he’s not so talented after all. Stopping use of the ‘roids after the 2003 season (when it became illegal to take them) might explain his postseason failures as a Yankee, overrated MVP seasons be damned. Without the juice, perhaps A-Rod just petered out at the end of the year.

If baseball’s greatest rivalry wasn’t enough already, I now cannot wait for the Yanks to play at Fenway this season even more. Rodriguez will absolutely, and well-deservedly, be crucified. Barry Bonds will wipe his brow and actually think the Sox fans let him off easy in comparison.

I’m going to love every second of it.

• February 22, 2009 -- VideoDeep: A-Roid No Surprise (0)
• February 11, 2009 -- Cinderella Story (7)
• April 29, 2009 -- The Hate List: 4/29/09 – My Top Two Most Hated Sports Teams (11)
• April 8, 2009 -- Panic in the Bronx (or, The Soap Opera Continues) (2)
• February 10, 2009 -- Poor Economy Doing It to Manny and the Mets (1)