A-Rod

SPORTING GOODS

For what it's worth, the A-Rod situation has convinced me that no solution exists for athletes' use of performance-enhancing drugs. I'm beginning to see their use as just another part of a training regimen. If that makes me an enabler, or an idiot, so be it.

At any rate, I was talking just a few minutes ago with a rabid Yankee fan, and I opined that the whole thing probably means nothing except when it comes to A-Rod's eligibility for the Baseball Hall of Fame. I see that Ross Douthat is thinking along those lines, too. Viz.,

Now perhaps steroid users should be banned for life, but the fact remains that A-Rod and others stand accused of violating a rule that carried no penalty save treatment at the time that they (and dozens if not hundreds of other players whose names haven't been leaked) broke it, and that today only gets you banned outright if you're a three-time offender. And I think it's a good rule of thumb that if you're allowed to continue playing major league baseball after committing a given infraction, you shouldn't be disqualified - informally or formally - from its Hall of Fame.

This isn't to say that the steroid effect shouldn't be considered in evaluating a player's fitness for the Hall. I wouldn't give A-Rod or Bonds the honor of a first-ballot induction, and I think that evidence of steroid use is a good reason for keeping borderline HoF candidates out. If you think a player wouldn't have reached Hall-worthy numbers without cheating - as I suspect McGwire wouldn't, for all his gifts - then don't vote him in. But there's no question that Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Roger Clemens would have made the Hall without the edge that steroids provided. And if you grant that premise, I think that they belong there, unless the sport is willing to take the plunge of banning them from the diamond permanently.

And it's that last notion that will make the difference. There's simply no way that MLB is willing to kill the golden goose, especially with new stadia being constructed and entertainment dollars being so scarce.

I'm not particularly impressed that A-Rod came clean (as some seem to be); after all, he faces no penalty for doing so, but I'm still not convinced that he should be banned from baseball or its Hall of Fame for trying to give the fans (and owner: What a sanctimonious moron Tom Hicks looks like in all of this.) what they wanted: an MVP-like performance.

UPDATE — And another reason I'm not willing to get too excited about all of this is the fact that our legislative grandstanders made such a big deal out of this while the economy was going down the toilet, Americans were losing basic civil rights, and an unnecessary war was being financed to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Zach Roth elucidates.