The Apogee of the American Media

So here we are, just a few days removed from Sports Illustrated breaking the story about Alex Rodriguez and steroids. As a Yankees fan, it pains me to hear about yet another member of my beloved squad getting outed for P.E.D.s. However, as a member of the media and as a longtime media observer, I find it beautiful. Not because I am one of the so-called "baseball purists" who is happy to see the game getting cleaned up. Hell, let them pump their bodies full of drugs; it's not harming my psyche and I'm not the one who will have mouse testicles in 14 years. No, it's because we get to see the American media at its absolute "finest."

First of all, let's examine how this thing got started. The players gave urine samples several years ago under the auspices that all results will be confidential, as they were performing a study to see if a steroid problem existed in the sport. The results of those tests, in which 104 players tested positive, were subsequently confiscated by the federal government as part of the BALCO raid. So, what this means is that the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT leaked the results to the media.

In what was probably payment for information, an attempt to get press, or simply a government employee trying to further personal goals, the fact is that the government injected itself (yet again in the Steroids issue) into the American media, using it as their own handy P.R. firm and the sad part is that the media continues to eat it up blindly. That in itself is abhorrent.

Next, we have the manner in which the media carried out this full-scale war on Rodriguez's name and image. For days now he has been vilified by every press outlet, not to mention the beating he has taken from those N.Y.C. tabloids that fancy themselves newspapers ever since he signed with the Yanks. The constant squawking about him ruining the image of the game and talk about banning him from Cooperstown, etc., has seemed to have an interesting influence on the American people. The people have turned on him just like those in the media and can you blame them? When you are being told on every TV channel and every radio station and every web site that A-Rod is a scumbag, you might start believing it too, if you did not know the guy personally.

Now, the public outcry has MLB Commissioner Bud Selig telling the press he will consider suspending A-Rod and maybe even erasing his stats. Really? Forget about all the other guys who were named in the Mitchell Report, forget about the guys in the BALCO case, hell, forget about the other 103 guys that tested positive with A-Rod in the same round of testing. Just single out A-Rod. Take out all of your embarrassment for being ignorant of the enlarged heads and jersey-shredding biceps when your eyes got misty when you saw Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa do the stomach punch handshake when Big Mac belted number 62 back in '98. Blame A-Rod for the fact that you gushed incessantly about baseball being saved by a clean star breaking a tainted one's (Bonds')records while you attributed guys like Brady Anderson hitting 50 jacks after never hitting more than 20 to more tightly-wound baseballs, smaller parks and the dilution of pitching talent.

No, they will not admit they were fooled. Instead, we all have to suffer through lessons of morality and decency from pundits who feel that they have the authority to pass judgment on a man they have only watched on T.V. just because they wield the golden sword.

In one fell swoop, the strangulation of American society continues. We don't ask why A-Rod may have taken the drugs; we don't ask why the media is only reporting about him and not the other 103; we don't ask why this is so bad yet it was ok for pitchers in the old days to throw spitballs or for Ty Cobb to slide in spikes high while screaming racial epithets. No, we listen to the media tell us that those guys just cared about winning and played hard. Well, didn't A-Rod just want to perform well to help his team win? Did he not play as hard when he was hitting .310/45/120?

So, when you see the continuing, incessant coverage of this story, just remember that whatever they tell you, it isn't about protecting the purity of the game or about being ethical. That excuse has been played out for years. It is about a group of people that are enraged about being deceived but are lucky enough to have something that disseminates their thoughts and ideas to millions of people. Block out the noise from this one, and you just may see that some ballplayer sticking needles in his butt may actually not be a defining moment in our nation's history. Just maybe.