Now A-Rod ?

Jimmie Fox




Alex Rodriguez



With all the revelations that have come out in recent years about Barry Bonds, I hated to see him break Hank Aaron's home run record. At the same time it happened a couple of years back, I found myself hoping that Alex Rodriguez, who was running ahead of Bonds' pace, would eventually break the record and remove Bonds' name from the record books. Rodriguez was well on his way to establishing himself as perhaps the greatest baseball player ever. Now this.

At this point, Rodriguez has not yet admitted using steroids, but the public reaction is already setting in. He needs to clear this up one way or the other, but I hope he will do it honestly unlike Bonds, Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa or Rafael Palmeiro.

As for me, I think it is time for all of us fans who love the game of baseball to put a mental asterisk, not only on all these baseball records that have been set in recent years, but our judgement about the players of this era in comparison to those of the past. Sure, we can joke about how Babe Ruth did it all on beer and hot dogs, but more seriously, there are so many others who should never have been eclipsed by this generation of cheaters. I always said that the greatest player I ever saw was Willie Mays, followed by Roberto Clemente and Hank Aaron. Mays is still called by many the greatest all-around player of all time. Should that be eclipsed by a Barry Bonds or an Alex Rodriguez (if Rodriguez did, in fact, use steroids)? What performance-enhancing drugs did the older players like Mays or Aaron use? There were reports in those days of amphetamines ("greenies") being popped by many players to combat fatigue and keep them going over a long season, but nothing that produced artificially high numbers in the power statistics.

To me, it is high time that we hearken back to the Mays', Clementes, Aarons and even the Jimmie Foxes, Hank Greenbergs, Lou Gehrigs and Stan Musials, names that are fading from our consciousness. There are so many players who set records and went into the Hall of Fame without the benefit of modern chemical enhancers like steroids. They are the ones we should be setting on our pedestals. Unfortunately, deserving old-timers like Ron Santo are denied while the Mark McGuires are now eligible. That is a situation will only get worse as more cheaters with inflated statistics become eligible.