They all have lost the benefit of the doubt.

Even badminton players:

"By the way, I read the other day that Rodriguez could have been a baseball immortal without PEDs.

But how could anybody possibly know that he wasn’t using drugs from the time he was a kid?"

Would you please cite a source for once?

All of these arguments with "people" who said "things."


Who, what, where, when, why ... the most fundamental basics of writing.

Who? Somebody.

What? Something.

When? The other day. The other day? He seriously is citing a vague something he read the other day?

I won't even cite something on this stupid blog without trying hard to attribute it. The pseudo-journalistic traits of Mike Lupica's writing are pathetically amateur.


We don't know if ARod was using steroids since he was a teenager. I now think that scenario is more likely than not.

Made a ton of money for himself, made a ton of money for other people, got caught, lost a lot of that money, lost his HOF creds, which he may have never achieved in the first place without the help of steroids.

But, without proof, I can say the same thing about hundreds of MLB players.

Not the HOF credentials part. Jason Grimsley, Jordany Valdespin, Francisco Cervelli, and many others lost their scrub credentials.


Let's say you were tied to a railroad track and the train was bearing down.

You can divert the train by pushing a lever. "Yes" lever or "No" lever. Choose correctly or you will die.

Simple question: Did the following player take steroids?

David Ortiz? Yes.

Craig Biggio? Yes.

Albert Pujols? Yes.

Josh Hamilton? Yes.

Edgar Martinez? Yes.

Nomar Garciaparra? Yes.

Mike Piazza? Yes.

This is not proof, it's just common sense, an educated guess, more likely than not.

Obviously, I could list hundreds of ballplayers I'm fairly certain about.

Once I get into some tricky calls -- Randy Johnson? Rickey Henderson? Trevor Hoffman? -- and I might get smushed by the imaginary train.


The thing is, nobody is going to jail, or getting their contract voided, based on innuendo.

You can't prove that ARod has been taking steroids since he was 17 years old. If you can prove it, then prove it. If you can't prove it, then you're just piling on a specific player because it's fun.


The list of steroid suspensions in MLB is astonishingly small. The drug testing doesn't work. The Miami New Times did all their work for them. The fans, managers, coaches, owners, and journalists all played along for a long time.

MLB investigators found a lot of damaging evidence on ARod... more than on any other ballplayer. But ARod's the only person they have investigated.

Kenneth Star never got the Clintons with Whitewater, but he stumbled into Monica Lewinsky (not literally).

Nostradamus's quatrains are always accurate simply because people always find what they're looking for. If you take the 14th letter of the 28th page and then read backwards every 13th stanza, it spells BKUJ... but that translates to AROD in ancient Abyssinian tongues.

Put the same energy, money, and time into investigating every player in the All Star Game ... every player in the Magical World Series.

Don't be surprised if you find steroid cheats, tax cheats, hidden evidence, hush money, drunk driving, wife beating, greenies, greenies, greenies, greenies, parking tickets, and a various assortment of copyright violations because they forgot to clear the Van Morrison song on their home movies.

I think you'll find that ARod is not the biggest criminal in MLB by any means.

So did ARod take steroids for his entire career? Probably.

Same for last year's World Series MVP.

Who isn't being banned from MLB because he's the Embodiment of Boston Strong.