Alex Rodriguez? Whatever… (Oh America!)

The initial talk surrounding the “Alex Rodriguez tested positive” centered around three thoughts: 1) What has the world come to; 2) Is anyone in professional baseball clean, and; 3) Poor A-Rod is being scapegoated. Everyone everywhere, from Sports Illustrated reporters to USA Today reporters to ESPN reporters/talking heads are making sure that Rodriguez’s “legacy” remains intact. Lee Jenkins of SI says:

Alex Rodriguez made clear Monday that one thing still separates him from Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, from Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire: he’s smarter.

He saw Bonds and Clemens hide behind denials, daring the federal government to come and get them. He saw Palmeiro wave his finger at congressmen. He saw Sosa practically forget how to speak English in the Rayburn building. He saw McGwire turn into a parrot who was “not here to talk about the past.”

Like any good hitter, Rodriguez studied the men who came before him, learning from their mistakes and adjusting accordingly for his turn at the plate.

As public relations strategies go, it is generally wise to look back at every choice Bonds has ever made, and then do exactly the opposite.

Gammons even asked the Yankees third baseman if he “learned anything form the staunch denials of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.” Gammons later told the sporting world that Rodriguez “sat down and told the truth” and said poor A-Rod is going to “sleep a long time tonight;” the result of his “emotional confession.”

Huh?!

Alex Rodriguez never, ever once in his disgustingly-staged interview with Gammons used the word “steroid,” or “steroids”.

The Big Subliminal’s Tim Kurkjian gave us this pap about Rodriguez:

“He was a little more forthright than I thought he would be. He didn’t hide behind the fact that he didn’t know what he was taking…”

Forthright?! Are the following passage from the interview anything close to forthright?

“I did take a banned substance and for that I am regretful…”

Followed closely by:

“You have nutritionists. You have doctors. You have trainers. That’s the right question today. Where did you get it? We are in the BALCO and Mitchell era. Back then it was just about what. There are many things that you can take that are banned substances. There are things that have been removed from GNC today that would result in a positive test. I’m not sure exactly what substance I used. Whatever it is I feel terrible about it.”

I’m not sure exactly what substance I used?!

This is not an admission of guilt. This is not a confession. This is not a mea culpa.

What it is, is a lie.

You can dance if you want; call it half-truth,; call it more than Roger Clemens’ vehement denials.

Alex Rodriguez never looked at us and said, “Yes I used steroids (and whatever else he used).” That’s all that he needed to say. It is not as if the feds would come crashing into his house, cuff him, and make him a rendition subject; that administration’s time is come and gone – for now. There are no legal grounds for the Yankees to yank money from Rodriguez’s hefty contract; the ‘roid use allegedly occurred with the Texas Rangers.

So why the seriously conflicted, fake heartfelt-confused-faux emotional statements from A-Rod?

Since he told Katie Couric on 60 Minutes in 2007 that he never used steroids, human growth hormone, or any other “performance-enhancing” drug (“No,” Rodriguez answered when Couric asked if he used any PEDs) and was since found to be a liar, perhaps this is just the tip of the iceberg for “A-Roid.”

“At the time I wasn’t even being truthful with myself,” Rodriguez told Peter Gammons when Gammons asked about the Couric interview answer.

But to turn around now and indirectly blame his trainer, nutritionist, and doctor and to never say the word “steroid” is no more truthful than his 60 Minutes answer.

Despite Rodriguez’s public relation agent-constructed confabulation, the sports media, after regrouping from its initial feigned shock at the news of his test results, has worked hard at excusing the Yankee.

“Everyone is kicking A-Rod for admitting,” screamed Kevin Keirnan, reporter for the Rupert Murdoch rag, the New York Post, on ESPN.

“Is Alex Rodriguez a victim of the times,” was a question put out by ESPN producers during Tuesday’s First Take morning show.

Meantime, A-Roid is lauded for calling himself, “Young stupid, and naïve.” Yes, he was 26 when he signed his contract with the Rangers. Yet, he appears to remain “stupid” and “naïve” as his almost-public affair with an ancient Madonna, among other extra-marital trysts, have ruined his family life (Rodriguez has two daughters) and led to his wife filing for divorce.

Now at 33, Rodriguez is no longer “young” and should be far from “naïve.” However, through his recent actions, we can definitely keep “stupid.”

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So, we know that Alex Rodriguez has received his slap on the wrist, his “get in line or else” moment. From here on out all we will hear of the man baseball and society at-large has propped up in front of us to supplant Barry Bonds are statements of a new-found humility and his good deeds toward his fellow teammate and fellow citizen.

The question, though, remains

Why?

Why are we being fed a false bill of goods about steroids, human growth hormone and any other life-enhancing substance (EPO, or red blood cell doping excluded)?

What is at stake for the powers that be that they must enlist the aid of every major sporting magazine, website, and network to project an outright lie?

Firstly, and most importantly, the ruse that steroids are “bad” and that they are “performance-enhancers” is being perpetuated simply because there is more money to be made in keeping normally healthy – and unhealthy – men less that healthy than there is in enhancing there well being.

The reasoning behind the lie is that simplistic.

Feeling tired? Take this. Feeling down or “depressed”? Take that. Leg twitching? Take so-and-so.

The hundreds of billions – perhaps trillions – of dollars made off of the backs of humans by “Big Pharma” is a train run amok. And they employ all manners of advertising agencies and ad people to construct coded messages intended, with extraordinary success, to make you and I question our very being – including our health. And though we are never satisfied with they way we look and resultantly, the way we feel, we willingly feed into the messages planted in our brains by Big Pharma, by insurance companies, by Big Agra corporate conglomerates, and by their wholly bought and paid for mediums used to disseminate their want for you to spend your hard-earned money on their products – and most importantly, to invest yourself in their unhealthy vision – image – of you.

Secondly, and secondarily, the leaking of the test results of  Alex Rodriguez and the lying to federal officials charge unexpectedly, suddenly, and inexplicably – and after all this time between the lie, knowing he lied and now, “the feds don’t like people lying to them” adage does not hold water – handed out to Miguel Tejada, all are directly related to the upcoming trial of Barry Bonds.

These holdover Justice Department and IRS officials from prior presidential administrations in the employ of Big Pharma (caveat to the previous accusation: “knowingly or unknowingly in the employ of…”) and potentially every other power structure that has the implicit aim to enslave us one way or another, have made Barry Lamar Bonds the black visage of steroid and PED evil.

How dare this black man spit in the faces of members of the various mediums charged with forging his image – then break the most hallowed record in “Our National Pastime” and think that there would not be some retribution for his acts? After an over two decade contentious relationship with the press, after years of articles and books maligning his person, after the baseball press purposely handed MVP awards to lesser players when the season Bonds had easily usurped the winners, the image makers got what they wanted – salacious, circumstantial evidence that Barry Lamar Bonds cheated the National Pastime and therefore cheated America… white America.

They trotted out a black man – Henry Aaron – to hide behind their racist motivations. They then employed the aid of black columnists – mostly – through dark tales of Bonds’ malignant character to join the fray, knowing most of these men, fearful of suddenly finding themselves outside of the white boys club, would capitulate, telling mostly second and third-hand stories about the evil that is Barry Bonds, thereby corroborating their white writer water cooler buddies’ rants.

In Aaron, these writers obscured the fact that the ex-home run king was almost always a wary and surly interview subject during his playing days and was a man who spent all of his baseball years and most of his adult years hating the baseball press. In Aaron’s mind, they exalted Barry’s godfather, Willie Mays to heights Aaron felt should have been reserved for him. As a result, Aaron has for decades held a special, very jealous spot in his heart for the man who stole his awards and garnered his accolades – the godfather of one Barry Lamar Bonds; the same Willie Mays.

So when Bonds failed to play baseball at all in 2008 these men used their power as corporate government mediums and exonerated the collusive acts of MLB owners who had blackballed Bonds from baseball.

And when the strongest union in all of professional sports, Major League Baseball Player’s Association, filed a suit alleging collusion, the pervasive feeling by those who invested so much time and energy in their anti-Bonds stance was, how dare the MLBPA back this renegade?

The following passages elucidate the aims of corporatist government agencies as they relate to drugs that aid our well-being, the MLBPA, and Barry Bonds:

In mid-November 2003, two months after federal agents raided BALCO, baseball announced that between 5 and 7 percent of tests were positive. That’s despite the fact that players effectively knew exactly when they would be tested. The percentage met a threshold that kicked in punitive testing for the coming years.

As part of baseball’s agreement with the two entities that implemented its program — Comprehensive Drug Testing (CDT) of Long Beach, Calif., and Quest Laboratories of Teterboro, N.J. — the samples and results from the survey testing were supposed to be destroyed soon after the information was confirmed…

About two weeks after baseball announced the percentage of players who tested positive in 2003, the grand jury investigating BALCO subpoenaed information related to all test results and samples from MLB’s program.

Negotiations ensued between the government, the players’ union, Quest and CDT. In March 2004, the parties appeared to reach an agreement that limited the government to obtaining information related solely to 10 players with connections to BALCO. However, on April 8, facing a deadline on how to respond to the subpoenas, the MLBPA filed a motion to quash on behalf of the BALCO-connected players. Ultimately, in its effort to protect the 10 players swept up in BALCO, the union exposed all 104 players who had tested positive in 2003.

The next day, federal authorities conducted separate raids on CDT in Long Beach and a Quest lab in Las Vegas that was maintaining MLB’s samples and results. Reacting to the union’s efforts to quash the subpoenas, the government turned around and obtained search warrants to get information related to all players — not just the BALCO athletes.

The bane of corporation owners is an empowered work force. And the goal of the corporation owners and their right hand that is the corporatist government is to break once and for all employees who join together and use law to protect themselves from their slave masters.

And so, the raid led by Jeff Novitzky of BALCO fame was a poison arrow aimed directly at the MLBPA —— and Barry Bonds.

Through a cursory listen to ESPN’s baseball writers and a read of the linked-to article anyone can see that the press is purposely pliant when it comes to the desires of MLB owners, but especially the government:

As part of baseball’s agreement with the two entities that implemented its program — Comprehensive Drug Testing (CDT) of Long Beach, Calif., and Quest Laboratories of Teterboro, N.J. — the samples and results from the survey testing were supposed to be destroyed soon after the information was confirmed.

But, for some reason, neither the owners nor the union filed the necessary paperwork ordering CDT and Quest to destroy all the records and samples. “It indicates how little concern anybody had for the outside investigation initially,” said one lawyer who was involved in the case.

“If anybody would have had a brain, they would have realized if we don’t destroy this info, it’s going to get subpoenaed.” About two weeks after baseball announced the percentage of players who tested positive in 2003, the grand jury investigating BALCO subpoenaed information related to all test results and samples from MLB’s program. (emphasis mine)

What has been excluded from this hit-job of an article is the fact that part of the agreement between the owners and the MLBPA was this: if the test results showed that five percent or lees than five percent of MLB players tested positive for steroids and other known PEDs there would be no testing whatsoever of MLB players. Gene Orza, Associate General Counsel of the MLBPA from 1984 to 2004 was charged with the duty of proving that three percent of those positive test results were, in fact, the result of false positives caused by substances not on the Major League Baseball PED list.

That is why two weeks after the results were in and an announcement of the results was made that they still existed. Yet that little tidbit of information is conveniently omitted from almost all the talk surrounding the MLBPA and the continued existence of the results.

Additionally, even a read of the Mark Fainaru-Wada-ESPN article shows that the Novitzky-led raid was a union-busting act of subterfuge. The reply to the MLBPA was, in essence, “We do not negotiate with domestic terrorists (or anyone who would dare to stand and fight the entity that is the right hand of corporate America).”

In one fell swoop Jeff Novitzky, on behalf of his government masters, skewed the image of the MLBPA, plus gained leverage in the ways of names of players to use as a lead-up to the Bonds trial.

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This is where we stand today. At present, baseball is once again being used as a false-flag whipping boy. In the end, Alex Rodriguez will suffer not one whit. Within the next two years (if that), A-Rod will be universally perceived as a sympathetic figure. And in the same time Miguel Tejada will be a footnote in PED lore.

The true goal of all this strang und durm is to once and forever bust the MLBPA, the player’s union, to show Americans that the government can ably ride to the nation’s rescue – if only we would give to it our undying consent and forsake our rights as a people – and restore its moral compass and to use one Barry Lamar Bonds to further foment racism, to subtly widen the gap in race relations, and to bolster the egos of whites who feel especially confused and closeted now that a black man has risen to lead the country.

And it also shows that, despite the simulacra of a 21st century equanimity between blacks and whites, despite the 2009 fact of a black man as President, slapping down a well-known black figure – Bonds – who does not know “his place” remains the true National Pastime of this fine nation called America.

(It’s good to be back from moving into a new home and suffering through major oral surgery. A yo folks!)

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Addendum: Thank goodness for local media, as, unlike most of their national counterparts,  many local columnists have been pointedly harsh where harsh matters, especially relative to Rodriguez’s “confession.” However, their view of the MLBPA, Barry Bonds, and “the sanctity of baseball” are loud whispers telling us that, among the “common folk” (which equates to most of us) there are skewed perceptions about race, the union, the true nature of the game of baseball, and yes, A-Rod.

Reactions from columnists around the country….

*Patrick Reusse – Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

Really, Mr. Selig, you’re a nice enough fellow, but it’s time to ride away on a golden parachute and make room for an articulate, square-jawed replacement who will declare war on the cheats (past and present) and restore trust in the Tarnished Old Game.

Gerry Callahan – Boston Herald:

He was going to be like the Mossad after Munich or Liam Neeson in “Taken,” tracking down the bad guys and picking them off one by one. He is going to take out Rafael Palmeiro by Memorial Day, knocking that lying, finger-pointing phony out of the top 10 on the all-time home run list.

Next year he goes after Sammy (Corky) Sosa and Mark McGwire, and finally, he is in line four or five seasons from now to eradicate that drug-addled scoundrel Barry Bonds from the record books. It was a tragedy for baseball when Bonds bumped Henry Aaron off the top of the home run list, but we were told to be patient. Alex Rodriguez was coming. A-Rod was going to make it right. He was going to hit 800 and remove the crown from the misshapen scalp of Barry BALCO.

Jill Painter, Los Angeles Daily News:

Finally, someone has told the truth about steroids.

No one legally wrangled it from his lips, either. Two days after a report that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003, he came clean about not being clean.

Hallelujah….

Rodriguez admitted using performance-enhancing drugs from 2001-03 during an interview Monday with ESPN. He said he didn’t know what exactly he was using. He was stupid.

He was young and naive. It was a “loosey-goosey” era.

Blah, blah, blah.

A-Rod said he used.

That’s what we needed to know.

Rodriguez didn’t take sole responsibility for steroid use. He apologized, but claimed it was the culture back then. He felt the heat to perform after signing a $252-million contract with the Texas Rangers. Others were using, too.

But other players haven’t come forward.

A-Rod did.

Terrence Moore – Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

…with much help from baseball’s era of bloated knuckleheads, Aaron has become even more of a classic. That’s why, 33 years after his retirement, just about the only person of significance who wasn’t inside a ballroom last week at the Marriott Marquis for his 75th birthday celebration was his new hero. Ever hear of Barack Obama? He made Aaron cry that November night when he was elected President of the United States.

Have you guys talked?

“No, we haven’t,” said Aaron, easing into one of his contagious laughs. He added after a pause, “I probably could talk to the president, but I think he’s got enough people talking to him right now.”

There goes Aaron’s splendid dance with modesty again. In some ways, he is bigger than any president, because presidents are elected. Kings aren’t. Kings have more longevity, and Aaron is a king. More specifically, he is baseball’s legitimate home run king, and everybody knows it, including the commissioner of baseball.

Said Bud Selig, Aaron’s friend of more than 50 years: “I think that, as a result of everything that has happened, Hank Aaron is more of an icon today than ever before.”

Bryan Burwell – St. Louis Post- Dispatch:

But A-Rod’s problem is baseball’s problem. No one believes him or anyone else in the game anymore.

So no, A-Rod, it’s not over. Not even close. All the baseball apologists who just want this garbage to go away as quickly as possible don’t seem to get it.

The unknown number of men in baseball who don’t cheat, who have never once taken an illegal pill, injected an illegal chemical, or sampled a designer wonder drug into their bodies, deserve to have their names removed from the sludge of this latest scandal.

The truth needs to come out, and I hope it does soon. I hope that before the position players arrive in camp, we are already exposing every single one of the other 103 names on that list of failed tests.

I want to start believing in baseball again. I think we all do.

Tim Sullivan – San Diego Union:

When baseball sold its soul, it sold too cheap. It bargained away more than a century of tradition and generations of goodwill in exchange for a few fleeting thrills and implausible deniability.

And the costs of steroid complicity keep climbing, with no ceiling in sight. Alex Rodriguez’s coerced admission that he indulged in performance-enhancing drugs leaves no fewer than 103 as-yet unnamed major league players sweating disclosure of their own positive tests. It finds many of the game’s most cherished records rendered meaningless by a generation of frauds. It has reduced the erstwhile national pastime to a credibility category only slightly above that of professional wrestling.

If you love the game, you have to hate what has happened to it, and you should probably hold those charged with its stewardship in profound contempt. It’s not that A-Rod seemed above suspicion – he wasn’t; or that anything he did will have any immediate bearing on attendance – it won’t; but his fall from grace forfeits baseball’s best chance to flee the toxic residue of Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, et al.

It is as maddening and melancholy a moment as baseball has experienced in the nine decades since the 1919 World Series. And the storm is likely to get worse before the clouds lift.