Just in case the AL’s overall winning record in Interleague Play wasn’t enough to convince you…

Just in case the AL’s winning percentage of 0.566 over the past 5 years of Interleague Play wasn’t enough to convince you… (in case you were wondering, a 0.566 winning percentage in 2009 would have you leading the NL Wild Card race)

Just in case the NL’s last All-Star Game win coming during Derek Jeter’s Rookie Year wasn’t enough to convince you…

Just in case the AL’s winning 7 of the last 11 World Series wasn’t enough to convince you…

How about John Smoltz and Brad Penny both lighting it up in the National League after they were JUSTIFIABLY deemed to be unworthy of taking part in the American League playoff push?

Just for good measure – let’s take a quick tour through the 4 of the past 11 World Series that were won by the NL, in reverse chronological order.

2008 – Phillies 4, Rays 1.  Was anyone seriously surprised when Cinder-Rays-la woke up with an ALCS-sized hangover and was so bloated she couldn’t fit into her glass slippers any more?

2006 – Cardinals 4, Tigers 1.  Everyone forgets how the Tigers pretty much handed the Cards 3 of the 4 wins in this series by playing in a manner which would have caused them to run extra laps during little league (errors, baserunning blunders, etc.)…I think the Tigers lineup was hands-down better at every position except 1B…David Eckstein was the Series MVP for cryin’ out loud!

2003 – Marlins 4, Yankees 2.  Josh Beckett owned the Yankees…I shamelessly giggled and dared to dream of what could happen if Theo could ever find a way to get him into a Red Sox uniform.  Ask any Red Sox fan – even back then, when Mike Lowell was a past-his-prime overpaid bum that Boston had to take off Florida’s hands just to get Beckett – it was a small price to pay to get the Yankee killer on the roster.  Of course, Lowell worked out OK, too.

2001 – Diamondbacks 4, Yankees 3.  Someone forgot to tell Arizona that everyone (with the possible exception of Red Sox fans) was rooting for the Yankees after September 11, 2001.  Hey – on a side note – anyone heard from Luis Gonzalez lately?  Take a look at this close-up of him after the game winning hit and shout out the first word that comes to your mind.  I’ll bet it rhymes with hair-droids.  If you yelled out something different, go ahead and click on it to see the larger version.

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Before the recent SI.com article, Alex Rodriguez was widely seen as baseball’s best hope to finally put the steroids mess in the rearview mirror once and for all.  The day that he broke Barry Bond’s tainted home run record was supposed to be a special day.

Well, I’m here to tell you that A-Rod is still baseball’s best hope, but there are several things that have just jumped out at me (some obvious, some not) over the past several days, and to me, those things, and how they are handled, will make all the difference.

• You Can’t Have it Both Ways, Alex.  After watching the Gammons interview, the first thing I noticed was the glaring contradiction whereby A-Rod starts by implying that it was a conscious effort on his part to take an active role in using performance enhancing drugs to “earn” his big fat new contract and cement his legacy as one of the greatest players of all time.  Then, later in the interview, he mentions that the “loosey-goosey” culture around baseball at the time was such that he just went with the flow, tried a few things, and could not even begin to tell you what he was on.  Well, which one is it?  I believe the scientific facts point to choice A, the one where he is a little less innocent.  He had the specific steroids and testosterone in his system, “stacked” in the specific proportions that would lead me to believe he was a habitual user, and knew exactly what he put into his system and when.  The sooner he admits this, the better off he will be…especially once the Feds come calling.  Bonds and Clemens and Tejada are going to jail.  A-Rod does not want to explore those kind of pinstripes.
• A-Rod’s Arrogance is the Most Damning Thing of All.  The first example of his arrogance here was during the Katie Couric interview.  I have included it below for easy reference.  After he says that he never used steroids and was never even tempted to do so, he goes on to say that it was because he has never felt overmatched on the baseball field and he is basically better than anyone else, not only because of how he plays, but because he did not take steroids.  I think perhaps a less egotistical answer may have served him well there.  Then, during the Gammons interview this week, he is trying to tell us that he thinks that the interview with Gammons is all that is required of him and he is ready to move on, so we should all move on as well.  In my opinion, he deserves everything that happens to him as a result of this…not because he used steroids when everyone else was using steroids, but because he was such an arrogant prick about it every step of the way.

• The New York Headline Question.  All in all, I think A-Rod did an excellent job during the Gammons interview.  Before piling on me for that last sentence, let’s remember that this is a guy that has seemed slick and coached during just about every interview I have ever seen…probably because he has 2 or 3 people on staff that coach him in those situations.  But not this time.  At least, it did not look that way.  It looked like he was genuinely not expecting any of the questions specifically, and he made an honest effort to be truthful without giving away the farm.  Let’s also remember that this dude is a ballplayer, not a Rhodes scholar.  I think he did well…except for the question about what he would like to be the headline in New York the following day.  I am trying to find it on YouTube and will change this text slightly once I do…but he basically dropped the ball and implied that the New York media was less than friendly.  The first time I saw it, as soon as the question was asked, I blurted out “A-Rod Apologizes to Fans”…think anyone might be thinking a little better of him if he had said that?
• Barack Obama is The Man.  I don’t care if you are the biggest racist redneck in the country, if you are a baseball fan, you have to know that we, as sports fans, finally have our President.  Sure, you could say it’s window dressing and he is just a brilliant orator, but take a quick look and listen below and let me know if you can think of another President since Lincoln that would have presented not only his feelings, but the feelings of an entire nation of baseball fans in such a nearly perfect manner.

• Tom Hicks Should Go Away.  For some reason, this rich guy that should have known better is on my TV talking about how he felt betrayed that A-Rod juiced up when he was with the Rangers.  Tom Hicks is way too smart to not know that at least half of his team, and every other team, was on the juice during that time.  I just wish he would go away…he has no dog in this fight, when you really look at it.  In fact, I think that A-Rod himself, or at least all Rangers fans, have been the ones that have been betrayed by Hicks.  So, let me get this straight…you had enough balls to give A-Rod the biggest deal in sports history, but not enough balls to extend yourself a little bit further and get him some teammates that didn’t suck?  How can some of these guys be so damn smart in their pre-baseball endeavors and so damn stupid once they own a team?
• Where the Eff is the Commissioner Hiding?  Speaking of stupid baseball owners, how come we have yet to hear from the Commissioner himself?  He is the single person in all of this that bears more responsibility for every inflated stat, wasted taxpayer dollar and dead-too-early-of-a-heart-attack former major leaguer that has happened and will happen in the future.  The blood is on his hands, and it always has been.  And how has he handled it?  Ignoring Barry Bonds during his run at Hank Aaron’s record.  Way to go, Mr. Commissioner.  What are you going to do now that your Ace in the Hole is dirty, too?  So far, to the surprise of no one, you have been absent from the public eye.  Every day that you have been commissioner has been an indictment against the entire league, but you are somehow getting worse at the time your game needs you to get better.  I am begging you as a baseball fan…can you please just have enough integrity and respect for the game you have destroyed to buy the Brewers back from your daughter and just run one franchise into the ground instead of the entire league?
• Conspiracy Theorists, The Line Forms Here. OK…I have no evidence of any of this whatsoever, but what if the “source” that leaked A-Rod’s name to Sports Illustrated was someone from the A-Rod camp?  Bear with me here, but A-Rod will forever be known as the first guy to come clean (Pettitte does not count) and has the potential to be known as the guy who brought baseball out of the steroid era…instead of Jose Canseco.  In fact, would you put it outside the realm of possibilities that this is all a creation of the Commissioner’s office, who would rather have A-Rod be known as the face of the steroid era and not Bonds and definitely not Ozzie’s brother…OK, probably a bad example when you have a commissioner that would have extreme difficulty pouring piss out of a boot, even if the instructions were written on the heel.  But, at this point, nothing would surprise me.  Let’s also not forget that A-Rod’s agent is the devil incarnate…anything is possible.
• Let’s Get ‘Em All.  The Feds have been talking about some crazy stuff lately, like not only dealing with the 104 positive tests, but also re-testing the 500+ negative samples they seized back in 2003, to determine if they were using, but were just further ahead of the testing technology of the day than A-Rod and the other 103 guys with hot samples.  I’m all in favor of it, but only because I think that the only way to actually quantify the Steroids Era is to get as much information about as many players as possible, and what they were using and what they were not.  There is a very easy way to accomplish this…an amnesty period, monitored by MLB.  Any player can come clean between now and March 31.  After that, if we or the Feds have to come to you, then you will be subject to a one-year suspension without pay.
• Statistical Relevance – Welcome to MLB Geeks.com.  I have purchased a domain name, started to gather my fellow geeks that love baseball, and hope to be launching an actual company soon that is dedicated to using cutting-edge technology to provide net positive value to our national pastime.  Watch our blog for more on this one later.

So, in conclusion, the only thing this blog entry has taught us is that I have had something to say regarding A-Rod and the steroids mess, and I have done so with my usual focus on conjecture and a total lack of sound journalistic research.  I hope you enjoyed my take on it and found something here that not every other idiot is saying about it.

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At a point in time where a baseball fan’s attention should be focused on the imminent arrival of pitchers and catchers in spring training or the prospects of your team, instead we are forced on a daily basis to hear reports on the Mitchell Report or whether the best pitcher of a generation used steroids or Human Growth Hormone.  Steroids, when abused, are bad for you with side effects that include liver damage, infertility, hypertension and a myriad of heart ailments.

Recently, David Cone was quoted when asked about drug testing during negotiations during the 1994 strike, “Certainly in retrospect, I think there’s plenty of blame to go around. Certainly I share some of that blame as being involved with the players’ association at that time,” Cone said. “It’s something I’m not proud of. It’s humbling. It’s embarrassing.”  Read the rest of this entry »

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