Bill Madden can't admit he was wrong.

Nice first sentence, professional writer:

"If you didn’t already know that has been a liar and a total phony through all of this ... that he told kids from the Taylor Hooton Foundation about the dangers and evils of steroids when he himself was continuing to seek them out ... that he selfishly dragged the Yankee organization and his teammates through an ugly summer of mudslinging distractions once it became evident he was going to be severely slammed by Major League Baseball for multiple violations of the joint drug policy, you could almost feel a little sympathy for him after watching him strike out twice, looking helplessly bewildered at one pitch after another Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium against the Tampa Bay Rays’ David Price."

I don't even know where to start:

1) That's a ridiculous run-on sentence.


2) "... through all of this ..."

Through all of what? Provide a setting, a context. Writing 101.

Because, yeah, I know all about Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees, but I still don't know what you "all of this" refers to.

This season?

This career?

This game?

The biogenesis scandal?

Help us out. We're the readers, you're the writer.


3) " ...that he told kids from the Taylor Hooton Foundation about the dangers and evils of steroids when he himself was continuing to seek them out ..."

a) Did someone just use the word "he" followed immediately by the world "himself"?

That can't be right. I must be hallucinating.

b) The way this sentence reads? ARod continuing to seek out the Taylor Hooton Foundation kids.


"After his second called strikeout in the fifth inning, A-Rod concluded that his night was over. As it turns out, his season will likely end Thursday as he may not join the Yankees in Houston for the final series of the season."

Yeah, he strikes out too much, without a doubt.

As for his season being over, it's the 200th time you predicted this and you're finally right. Four games left, after the Yankees have been eliminated from the playoffs.



“ 'Take me out, coach, I’m no longer ready to play,' is what he essentially told Joe Girardi in the eighth inning Wednesday night, paraphrasing John Fogerty. He needed to take care of his legs, which were pained by calf and hamstring problems, to which Girardi said something to the effect of: 'Whatever. Take care of your legs.' "

"Paraphrasing John Fogerty," he says.

It seems like a wise move to me. Girardi rode this guy for as long as he could, got some decent production for a while. I see no reason to push it.


"Not that we should be surprised by any of this. All the medical people you talk to — other than, perhaps, the 'five-minutes' famous Dr. Michael Gross of Hackensack Hospital who A-Rod’s handlers pulled out of central casting to refute the Yankee team physician’s MRI of a Grade One hamstring strain that was keeping him off the field during his re-hab circus back in July — agreed the surgeries Rodriguez has had on both hips, if not necessarily career-ending, would significantly diminish him as an everyday All-Star caliber player.

They all cited the fact that frequent related leg injuries, like the calf and hamstrings that have hampered him this year, were inevitable."

No one is ever again expecting him to be an everyday All Star caliber player.

As an aside -- those medical people you talk to - do they wear white coats? Have they cut back on your meds?


"According to one source in the know, despite his blowhard lawyer Joe Tacopina’s bravado that Rodriguez doesn’t deserve even one day of suspension, A-Rod, 'is terrified' about the upcoming hearing on his 211-game drug suspension that begins Monday in New York. According to the source, that might partly explain the recent 3-for-17 (.081) slump in which he’s looked so helpless."

Listen to this freakin' guy.

Slumps happen all the time. ARod is a streaky hitter. ARod strike out way too much. His bat is slow, he refuses to adjust, his legs are shot, his conditioning is poor, David Price is good. Lots of reasons he'd strike out twice in one game.

One thing that is definitely not a reason? ARod is scared of the upcoming MLB hearing.

Even if ARod is terrified of the hearing, it certainly is not the reason for his slump.


"If that’s true, then maybe A-Rod needs to stop listening to all these lawyers who are bent on keeping their meters running and bleeding him for more money than he’s going to lose from his suspension, and take the weekend to see if Commissioner Bud Selig’s drug sheriff, Rob Manfred, and his MLB honchos might be amenable to a deal."

Really?

This ought to be good.


"I don’t propose to know if they would be — they’ve already come down from the lifetime ban Selig wanted to the 211 games — but even if, say, as many as 60 games were taken off the sentence, it would still amount to A-Rod getting three times more punishment than all the other 12 guilty players in the Tony Bosch Biogenesis case. And it would still keep him out of the game for nearly the entire 2014 season and, for all intents and purposes, end his career."

A career-ending deal?

Well, when you put it that way, it's an offer too good to pass up.


"At the same time, it would save everyone the further time, expense and trouble of a hearing that Rodriguez must surely know isn’t going to be deemed to be a lot of trumped up falsehoods based on forged documents, unreliable testimony and devious investigative means, as his lawyers are claiming. Not after his own union head, Michael Weiner, essentially said he was guilty when the Biogenesis suspensions came down in early August, and that only the proper punishment needed to be determined."

So we're finally ready for the hearing ... we're four days away ... and Madden's proposal is for ARod to scrap the idea to save everyone time, expense, and trouble.


"He needs to get a grip on reality — which is that he’s finished as a player and guilty as charged as a serial steroids cheat. His best option now is to try and make a deal with MLB, so at least all the lurid details of just how guilty he is and how much he betrayed Don Hooton’s kids, may never come out."

Madden insists ARod will never play again. ARod plays.

ARod outperforms Madden's expectations. Madden insists ARod is finished as a player.

MLB leaks all of its ARod information since day one, so there is no reason for anyone to believe the lurid details wouldn't come out.

Who needs a grip on reality here?