Friday, February 13, 2009

“Say It Ain’t So…A-Rod!”

What is unfortunate is that outing Alex Rodriguez, the New York Yankees top-paid player also known as A-Rod, as a steroid user merely highlighted the "Dark Side" of our souls--the fans.

It cannot be oversimplified that baseball fans have always known that many of the professional modern players were/are "juiced" and are willing--quite willing to accept it.

From 1998 to the present, MLB (Major League Baseball) records that stood for more than a century are now being shattered during a one-calendar baseball season. Many of us were not around or too young when the “Giants” of baseball played the great American pastime without steroids. These were players like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Mickey Mantle, and Reggie Jackson. And so fans felt "cheated" that they had no great players to call their own. And in that desperation they turned to a darkness that wasn’t fully understood and that darkness was “steroids!”

A-Rod said he used steroids at the start of the 21st century because of the “pressure” he was under when he’s signed a 10yr. $245 million dollar contract with his former team, the Texas Rangers. His goal was to show the baseball world that he was worth every penny, but in the end, A-Rod decided that being one of the elite baseball players wasn’t enough! A-Rod needed to be the best in baseball but at what cost?

Let us begin to turn our attention to addressing steroids prevention to our youth and adolescents who are striving to be “great athletes” and not the “superficial athlete” in their respected sport.


They deserve a chance to be great without the juice.




Best Regards,

Anthony P. Johnson, Ph.D. Candidate, Author
Founder & CEO
Dream Field Academy
647 East Raymond Street
Philadelphia, PA 19120
Office: 215-744-1773
Cell: 215-715-0355
antho@earthlink.net

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, do tell! The side is much darker than we all really want to admit. Performance Enhancers are the premier players that the organizations pay all of this money to; therefore perform they will. You best believe that if a player receives such an offer, and does not perform, that there are dire consequences unbeknownst to many, or known. When a lifestyle change happens because of this large jump in salary and endorsements, it is a great fall from grace and for some career ending. When faced with such a choice, what would one really do? These athletes spend their entire lives for this once in a lifetime opportunity, and how many do you think are really going to just throw in the towel when they find that the "playing field" is not just where they perform, but in the system of National Leagues (NL). We are talking lots of money here and if a tester is making 40K annually, and is offered 40K "right now" tax free cash, what do you think will come into their mind first? That was the reason why Hoover did not want the FBI agents involved with drug enforcement, he knew that it was too compromising and tempting to place offciers in situations that could compromise the integrity of the agents. "So, It Ain't So...A-Rod! It's NL covert requirements, and whatever you do, don't reveal your source of this information. I might be compelled to defect to the darkside! Grrrrr.

ABAD said...

well said!!!