A-ROD SUSPENSION

Several years ago, I had a really good guy friend who, unbeknownst to me, was a drug addict. When I finally found out, I immediately tried to get him help, including begging his estranged father to get on board. His father said something to me that I’m sure very many people were aware of, but never having been in the druggie world, I was not. He said, “Do you know how to tell when a drug addict is lying? His lips are moving.”

And now, I’m sad to say, that’s how I feel about Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. He’s not a drug addict, that we know of anyway, but we can’t believe a word he says anymore. I believed him in 2007 when he told Katie Couric on 60 Minutes that he had never even contemplated using steroids. When it came out two years later that he had, indeed, been on the muscle pumpers, and was asked by baseball journalist Peter Gammons why he had lied to Katie, Alex’s excuse was that he had been lying to himself. And naïve me believed him once again, as I assume millions of other Yankees fans did, too. I didn’t want anything upsetting the balance of my on-field heroes.

How I used to love A-rod, root for him, and cry for him. (But thank goodness I never had a crush on him!!! I’m proud of myself to have always chosen Derek Jeter, the classiest person in baseball, {along with teammate Mariana Rivera, of course,} for that particular honor.) I remember horrifying the family of one of my new friends, in the summer of 2007, when I sat in their living room on Long Island, hysterically crying because A-Rod had just reached yet another milestone in his baseball career–500 career home runs. What an achievement! Or at least it would be, for someone who had never used performance-enhancing drugs. But this was four months before even the Katie Couric interview, so I had never even thought of steroids as a possibility for someone as hunky as Alex Rodriguez. He was always a big, strong guy, but wasn’t excessively bulky or were muscled.

So here we are, six years later, and it’s all coming out—the steroid usage, the coverups, and the plain flat-out lying. I watched every single second of the coverage of this horror show yesterday, and had to get into bed early from the depression it was creating in me. It was just such a surreal day. So many of the commentators were saying what a great day it was for baseball to have suspended thirteen players on whom they have the goods about receiving performance-enhancing products from Biogenesis Labs in Florida. (I’m still in the dark about how the whole thing works, but trust me, it’s not good.) While I agree that it’s great news that baseball is finally punishing the cheaters, the whole day just seemed so bleak to me. I felt like it should have been pouring outside.

Karen Salkin with Ryan Braun, before we knew he was a cheat.

But here’s the craziest part—while the other dozen or so players accepted their fifty game suspensions, effective immediately, A-Rod is fighting his. Granted, his suspension is two hundred and eleven games, which will take him through the rest of this season and all of 2014. So how awful were his mistakes for him to be given more than four times the punishment of the rest of the players?! I wonder if we’ll ever know. [Note: Milwaukee Brewer star player, Ryan Braun, accepted a sixty-five game suspension on July 22. He’s yet another major disappointment for Major League Baseball, after vehemently proclaiming his innocence over and over again.]

Watching his pre-game press conference, (for those of you who saw it, also, he sure can sling it, can’t he?,) I couldn’t figure out if he’s in denial or just a liar. Or crazy like a fox. He’s getting to play while he’s appealing his “sentence,” and by the time it’s all worked-out, which will probably not be until November, he’ll have gotten to play the rest of this season…and get paid for it! And, if his appeal yields a less stringent sentence, he’ll have won, if only in a small way. But it will still be a victory of sorts, which I guess is what he’s going for to begin with.

The irony of the whole situation is that last night was the first game he’s played in the entire 2013 season because he was out due to multiple injuries and surgery. So, the game that so many of us Yankees fans were looking forward to all season was instead sort of a mish-mash nightmare. Our hero, Derek Jeter, had just returned to the field recently (last Sunday, to be exact,) after yet another injury of his own this season, and got hurt again this past weekend. So he was put back on the Disabled List (that he had just come off,) which made room on the roster for A-Rod to return. If that situation is frustrating to us Yankees fans, just think of how maddening this whole debacle is to the Yankees team and management! I don’t think any of us plebians can even begin to imagine.

And what kind of narcissist is Alex Rodriguez, to be able to even show up?! I’d love to know his thoughts as he entered the team locker room for the first time since his terrible performance in the 2012 playoffs. My heart would have beaten out of my chest if I were in a similar circumstance. I think I would have retired before I had to face my teammates again.

So, time will tell us all what’s what. But for now, baseball, the sport I love to watch the most, is just painful to me. I would say this whole scandal has ruined my summer, but my numb hands have already taken care of that. Actually, I should probably thank A-Rod for distracting me away from the pain for a day! Yeah, that’s the way I’ll spin it! If only to myself. Hey, I guess I just learned from the best.