A-Rod's big week

When Alex Rodriguez admitted this week to using performance-enhancing drugs for three years while playing for the Texas Rangers, baseball took a hit harder than one of A-Rod's juiced up home runs. Rodriguez is widely regarded as one of the game's top two or three players, and such a revelation certainly tarnishes if not ruins his reputation. Whether baseball fans will ultimately excuse his actions as just another transgression of the steroid era remains to be seen. The more important question is: what the HGH was he thinking?

I totally understand why marginal professionals would take PEDs to try to earn more money and notoriety. I don't condone it necessarily, but I understand. But Rodriguez had already established himself as one of the best players in the game. In 2000, his final season before joining the Rangers, he had an outstanding season. So why would he need to take any illegal substances, putting himself in such serious personal risk?

That would be like me plagiarizing a different humor writer who wasn't as funny as I am. Why would I want to cheat like that? I'm already amazingly funny. A-Rod and I, we hit home runs practically every time we step to the plate!

A-Rod says in an interview with ESPN's Peter Gammons that he did it because he was under a lot of pressure to perform at a high level after signing with Texas. I guess we all deal with pressure in different ways, I suppose. But did he have to cheat? Why couldn't he have handled the pressure the way most people do, like overeating. Possibly drinking. Take it out on others. Work himself to the bone, realize he wasn't satisfied with any of his results, and fall into a shame spiral? You know, healthy ways of dealing with pressure.

But it's difficult to be too upset with Rodriguez. After all, it seems like his cool demeanor on the baseball field doesn't translate to a cool and popular guy in the clubhouse. To quote A-Rod from the Gammons interview:

"Peter, in our clubhouse, everybody makes fun of me. I'm talking about from the clubhouse kid, to every coach, Larry, Mike, Joe Torre. Every guy on the team. And I like it. I like taking it. I am not a good ragger, but I am a good receiver... That's really a compliment the guys feel that comfortable that they can actually make fun of me at any time. So did I hear A-Fraud? We joked around about a lot of things. Listen, 25 guys have 25 different nicknames. So to me there's no harm, no foul there."

It appears A-Rod is the Yankees' whipping boy. And by the way, Alex, it's probably not a sign of friendship that everyone makes fun of you. It's so prevalent, it's even part of the Yankee Stadium tour.

Tour guide: And this, folks, is All-Star Alex Rodriguez, or A-Fraud as I like to call him. He also responds to A-Clod, A-Moron or A-Lawd, as in 'lawd he sure is a loser!' Isn't that right, Lexie? Feel free to kick him in the groin if you want, he won't mind. Don't be shy!

So I do feel bad for Rodriguez. He's getting hammered by respected journalists in the media. He's also getting hammered by the New York Post, which ran the front-page headline "A-Hole" the day after Rodriguez's confession. That's really mean (and funny).

Rodriguez was relatively forthright in his interview. But some of his responses were sketchy. Like saying he doesn't even know exactly what substance he's guilty of using, because it was such a "loosey-goosey era." He could have taken steroids, HGH or injected Old Spice into his veigns, who really knows?

But I'm starting to realize why A-Rod is not highly regarded amongst his teammates. First, he says things like "loosey-goosey." The last time someone said that was, um, in the 1920s. And did you see the outfit he wore for the Gammons interview? The lamest blue sweater over a collar shirt combination I've ever seen! He looked like a librarian...or Mr. Rogers.

A-Rod can beg for mercy all he wants, and maybe he will be forgiven in the eyes of baseball fans. But if not, he's reaping what he's sown, or in this case, injected. And at the end of the day, he still gets to go home and get a little loosey-goosey with Madonna, if you know what I mean.