A-Rod joins baseball's tainted generation (From Halesowen News)

A-Rod joins baseball's tainted generation

3:48pm Friday 20th February 2009

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Alex Rodriguez will be dreading April 6.

That’s the date the New York Yankees slugger will step out at Baltimore’s Oriole Park for the first regular season road game and face the full wrath of fans anger at his involvement in baseball’s latest drugs scandal.

The 33-year-old third baseman, arguably the sport’s biggest star and on course to break the all-time home run record, recently admitted to taking steroids during his time at the Texas Rangers between 2001 and 2003.

Rodriguez, nicknamed A-Rod, claims he was injected by his cousin twice a week for six month periods in order to get “a dramatic energy boost.”

The admission followed a report in Sports Illustrated which stated he was one of 104 players who tested positive for the steroid Primobolan and for testosterone during a doping survey, before baseball introduced mandatory tests in 2004.

For a sport which has spent the last few years ravaged by drug revelations, this latest scandal couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Post Super Bowl February is traditionally the time when the US turns its attentions toward the impending baseball season but Rodriguez’s fall from grace is now dominating the front pages, let alone the back.

In recent years America’s pastime has seen itself become very much second fiddle behind the all conquering NFL, a decline accelerated by the fact too many big stories have dealt with issues off the field.

First former Oakland and Texas hitter Jose Canseco admitted taking steroids in his book Juiced, a revelation which eventually embroiled a number big stars including Yankees slugger Jason Giambi.

Then Barry Bonds was shamed in the BALCO scandal on his way to breaking the all-time home record.

Ironically, Bonds’ biggest critics spoke at the time of their relief his new, tainted mark would soon be eclipsed by a “clean” player - A-Rod.

You don’t have to search far to find the root of baseball’s problems. Any sport which, even at the start of this decade, turned such a negligent, blind-eye to drugs was always going to come a cropper at some point.

In my view, the punishment for a positive test is still too weak. A 50 game ban equates to just less than two months in baseball and a similar penalty to cycling’s two year ban would prove more of a deterrent.

A-Rod and his peers acted because there was no threat to their career, earnings or future and the star himself has used the excuse of being “young and naive.”

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman has to his credit criticised these remarks and said he would prefer to hear the star, who the Yankees have agreed to pay $250million over ten years, just admit to being “stupid.”

A-Rod has so far received support from New York team leader Derek Jeter and been backed by fans attending the Yankee’s spring training camp in Tampa.

But Baltimore, and history, won’t be so forgiving.

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