No shit. In today’s press conference, Oompa Loompa, his skin still as orange as my Tropicana with Extra Pulp, claimed that he thought the stuff he was taking just might be steroids, but he wasn’t really sure they were.
According to Oompa Loompa, a “cousin” he would not name got him the stuff from the Dominican, which he said he knew only as “Boli” and was not exactly sure it was a steroid. The fact that the stuff had to be injected into him apparently did not set off any alarm bells. The fact that he was a professional athlete allegedly did not cause him to say “Hey, cuz, what exactly is this shit you’re poking into my ass?” His “Apology” essentially amounted to an excuse, not an apology, saying that he was young and wasn’t sure what he was doing, as opposed to standing up like a man and saying “I cheated, I’m sorry, it’s one hundred percent my fault.”
Mr. Loompa said, over and over again, that he was “young” and “immature” and many variations on that theme, as if he had been 12 years old when he tested positive and not, in fact, 28.
It’s got to be some sort of curse by God that the best baseball player in the world was a monumental asshole, and now he’s gone and the new best baseball player in the world is either a complete asshole or an absolute moron or, it seems likely, a bit of both. Are Yankee fans actually going to cheer for this bastard?
I don’t think he’s insane or an asshole; I just think he’s got some kind of personality disorder. He has no idea how he comes off even though he’s constantly obsessing about how he’s coming off. It’s so painful to watch most of the time I have a hard time even faulting him for it.
This excuse wasn’t nearly as offensive as the first one he offered, to Peter Gammons:
“I took steroids because I Was under a lot of pressure, due to my huge contract.”
You mean… the contract that YOU demanded?
You could have gone to play for any number of pennant contenders for a truckload of money. Instead, you CHOSE to play for the worst team in baseball because they were the only team willing to pay you TWO truckloads of money!
You could’ve take $150 million to play for, say, the Angels, in front of mellow fans. Instead, you demanded $250 million, and then have the nerve to pose as a victim???
His history of postseason “chokes” is vastly overblown and is based on two series and 29 at-bats. In his first postseason as a Yankee he hit .320 and slugged the crap out of the ball.
You know what’s super awesome? Besides being a great baseball player, hot, and unbelievably rich I’ve read that he has a huge cock and knows how to use it!
Well, people actually say that stuff about Rodriguez sincerely, so pointing out that it doesn’t really jibe with the facts seems worthwhile.
Anyway, he must be getting some terrible advice on crisis management. He’d do much better just to say he knowingly took them and he’s sorry and leave it at that. Even if, somehow, he really didn’t know they were steroids, he’d do better to say he knowingly too them.
Sleeps With Butterflies:
Yeah! That’s what Madonna liked about him so much! Well. That and the fact that he was willing (eager!) to touch her withering girly parts.
As far as the apology goes. I think he is smart to get in front of the issues and talk about them. But, kind of dumb for bringing up all the whys the how, and wheres… He would have been much better served to have just said “I’m sorry I did it. it was a mistake. And, I am going to make it my goal to make sure kids know it is wrong. Like I do, now.” People would still bitch. But, they wouldn’t have as much reason.
Bingo. Except of course for Clemens and Bonds, who still cling to the notion that they will be vindicated because there is no video showing someone else poking them in the butt with a needle. :rolleyes:
The phony part for me? The sad display of pseudo emotion when he looked at his teammates. He was choked up? Please. I was more choked up at the end of There Will Be Blood. (i.e. not at all)
If anyone wanted a SERIOUS answer to the question of “Will Yankee fans cheer for A-Rod,” I’d say, “Why would they start now?”
He’s NEVER been popular in New York. Yes, he gets a big hand when he makes a nice play or delivers a big homer, but Yankee fans have NEVER embraced him, and he’s all too well aware of that.
Look, from a numbers standpoint it’s clear that A-Rod is one of the best players ever… and yet, many New York fans would tell you (seriously!) they’d rather have Scott Brosius back! That makes NO sense at all from a statistical standpoint, or even a common sense standpoint, but there you have it… no matter HOW good A-Rod is, he’s never going to be loved in New York. Or anywhere else, really.
Obviously, I don’t really know Alex Rodriguez. MAYBE he’s really a wonderful guy. But like Steve Garvey a generation ago, he rubs teammates and fans the wrong way, because he wants desperately to be loved, but invariably comes across as smarmy and phony.
Some of what Rodriguez said is probably true: for example the admission that he did some other supplement (now banned) while playing with Seattle. The part about not knowing what the drug was before he did it… I’m not sold either way. These people care about their health but they aren’t rocket scientists, that much is for sure. It’s not really important. The stuff about being young and stupid is dishonest and idiotic. ‘I’m moving forward’ is pathetic. If you needed to lie about it for years, you don’t get to proclaim it’s now resolved and boy are you glad to get that off your chest.
And of course, if he claims that he did steroids in Texas because he felt a lot of pressure, due to his contract, one must naturally ask…
What? There’s no pressure in New York???
If anything, A-Rod is under far MORE scrutiny and pressure with the Yankees. If pressure pushes him to use illegal substances, why wouldn’t he use MORE of them in New York?
According to legend, Mantle struggled to be accepted by Yankee fans at first because he wasn’t DiMaggio, and then Maris had a hard time in '61 because he wasn’t Mantle.
A-Rod’s biggest problem (prior to now, anyway) in New York was that he wasn’t Jeter. Don’t know why it works that way, but it seems to do. I think the perception of A-Rod as a playoff choker is largely due to the fact that he’s Not Jeter, and Jeter was Mr. Clutch during the Yankees’ late-'90s World Series runs.
None of this, of course, changes the fact that A-Rod is, in fact, a jackass. My favorite bit from the press conference was when someone asked him why he was so secretive about it if he wasn’t sure he was doing anything wrong, and he said, “Well, we knew we weren’t taking Tic Tacs.” In other words, “I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong, but I was pretty sure I was doing something wrong.”
I still reject the notion that an athlete will inject himself with something he knows nothing about but some 3rd world friend said it was good. I believe he knew full well what he was taking. He just felt he would never get caught.
Part of being an athlete is learning about what you can do to make yourself stronger and faster. They educate themselves on whats around. Would you take something given on 2nd hand information?
Nailed it. I thought A-Rod had done the [del]right[/del] optimal thing, mostly, in the initial interview (‘I did it, I’m sorry’). Granted, he was selling bullshit, but it was only about 1/4 as pure as what Bonds and Clemens are peddling.
Part of me was actually dismayed because I figured, given his immense popularity, if he handled this ‘properly’ he’d alter the way 'roid users were perceived. Take them from ‘calculating, unrepentant assholes’ to ‘nice guys who screwed up and are sorry’.
…and then, the very next time he’s in front of the camera, he rolls out his own version of the ‘plausible idiocy’ defense. What a colossal douchebag…
