When the story broke that Alex Rodriguez took steroids in 2003, there was a question that immediately came to my mind.
Why did he juice up on stuff that wore off during the playoffs?
All kidding aside, A-Rod's now-admitted use of banned substances from 2001-03 was more sad than shocking. Sad because he was the last hope for truly great players from this era. Sad because there is no longer a player that would shock baseball fans if his name was attached to steroids.
So where does baseball - and its fan base - go from here?
The sport was already a mess, with most of its outstanding players of this generation holding dark clouds over their heads. Barry Bonds, statistically, is the greatest power hitter in the sport's history. Roger Clemens is the best power pitcher of this era and is on the short list of all-time greats. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa lifted MLB out of a funk with the home run chase in 1998, but they're tragic ghosts.
With A-Rod, we had hope. Even though I wasn't overly surprised by his failed test, I always thought there was a chance he was clean. Unlike Bonds, who seemed to triple in size from his early years to 2001, A-Rod's build has looked the same since he first came into the league. And his yearly performances were too consistent to ever raise suspicion. From 1996-2008, he hit at least 35 home runs every season except for one and never hit more than 57.
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Meanwhile, McGwire, Sosa and Bonds were blazing past 60 homers multiple times in the late '90s and beginning of the decade.
A-Rod hit between .285 and .321 from 1997-2008 and was a near lock for 100-plus runs and 110-plus RBIs every season. There weren't any outlier seasons that would have raised red flags for fans, and with what the other allegedly-juiced sluggers were doing, who would have noticed? So, even as a Red Sox fan, I held out hope for Rodriguez. I wanted him to break Bonds' all-time home run record, so that the most important record in sports would be clean. Baseball has always been about numbers. The NFL and NBA might be more popular, but records don't mean nearly as much in those sports. The casual fan knows Jerry Rice is the all-time leader in everything for wide receivers, but how many could name his career touchdown or yardage totals? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has the most points in NBA history, but who knows the number off the top of their head?
Hank Aaron's 755 home runs, the previous all-time mark, was a number any baseball fan new. Roger Maris' 61 was the magical single-season number that old-school baseball fans had memories of until McGwire and Bonds laid waste to it. Now, fans are stuck trying to figure out what to make of this mess. The steroids cloud has been around for a few years now, and it has had a minimal effect on fan interest. People are still attending and watching games. It seems it's gotten to the point where we have to assume everyone from this era was juiced and accept the time period for what it was. Once the season starts, most of the steroid stuff will be forgotten and we'll go back to watching a few great games sprinkled with the best storylines.
The big question now is, How will this era be perceived in the future? McGwire was the first of the steroid-linked sluggers to be eligible for the Hall of Fame, and he didn't come close to getting in. Some experts think he never will. The same is being said of Bonds and Clemens. When you throw in Sosa, Raphael Palmeiro and Pete Rose, there may be a list of players to not make it into Canton that stands taller than the Hall of Fame itself.
His playing days are far from over, but I think whether A-Rod gets in will determine how this era will be viewed historically. If and when he does pass Bonds on the all-time home run list, not to mention setting a number of other records, will the voters forgive him because he admitted his mistake, apologized and kept playing? The ugly way that Bonds and Clemens have gone about their situations seems to have alienated voters even more. Rodriguez is the first truly great player to admit to steroid use. If the Hall voters believe that his use was only from 2001-03, perhaps his failed test will just be viewed as a small blemish on an otherwise brilliant career. Until then, the game's best player, who continuously comes up short in big situations, will have even more weight on his shoulders. Now, assuming he will be clean going forward, he has a ton of making up to do.
