A-Rod Speaks

So Alex Rodriguez sat in front of a ward of media today in Tampa and finally gave the speech everyone wanted to hear. Well, while he said might not have been the most believable thing, he did say what he wanted to and now reporters and fans can all take this entire issue, put it in the rear-view mirror, and worry about baseball in 2009.

There will surely be talk over the next few days regarding some of the things Alex said. He noted that his cousin introduced him to the stuff and that he did not know what he was injecting. I can buy that someone like his cousin got it from the Dominican Republic, but I am still skeptical on him not knowing what he put in. He had to have had some inkling, and definitely did by saying "We knew we weren't taking tic-tacs." The extent of knowledge he had on the steroids will only be known by him, so everyone else should just forget about finding it out.

It's also hard to believe him when he says he was "young and foolish." At that point in his career, he was no longer young. Foolish? Probably. But he knew better. The problem with all of his bashers is that they don't realize how baseball was all about steroids at this point. Most players probably didn't take any, but there was no doubt a good portion who did. In a society where everyone wants to be better at what they do, people will do whatever they can to get to that level. Ballplayers were willing to take the risk of health problems to get that extra edge. A-Rod wanted to prove he was worth all that money Texas threw at him, and did whatever he felt was necessary.

Rodriguez made a mistake, and now it is time to move on. Is he wrong for taking steroids? Yes. Has he placed another black mark on the game? Probably. Should he be punished, criticized, and have this hanging over his head the entire season? No. The guy screwed up, he apologized, and he admitted to the mistake. People need to focus on what this guy is going to do on the field this upcoming season rather than worrying about what happened back from 2001-2003. It's over, it's done with, it's time to move on!