Nothing to Believe In: A-Fraud Dirty, Too

He needed to be clean and real, not A-Fraud. If baseball ever was to move forward, past the integrity-scarring scandals that exposed a sport as dirty and the commissioner and owners as conspirators, Alex Rodriguez had to be juice-free. It was one way we could bury the Steroids Era, with A-Rod chasing down the symbolic bloated head -- Barry Bonds -- and breaking his home-run record as America cheered truth, justice and the untainted dinger.

Well, so much for the Superhero ending. As we all should realize by now, baseball has been too scummy the last two decades for fairy tales.

Now comes a report, via Sports Illustrated, that Rodriguez is as guilty as the other juicers. In 2003, when the powers-that-be finally started to cleanse their performance-enhanced game and test players anonymously to determine the extent of usage, A-Rod reportedly was among 104 players who tested positive for two anabolic steroids. That year with the Texas Rangers, he led the American League with 47 home runs and a .600 slugging percentage and was named Most Valuable Player in the third year of a blockbuster $252 million contract. It was a significant time frame in history: sport's biggest contract tied into one of baseball's premier all-time players.

Turns out that his damning nickname in the Yankees clubhouse, A-Fraud, is all-encompassing. And it leaves the Steroids Era with a humiliating roll call for posterity: its greatest power hitter (Bonds), greatest starting pitcher (Roger Clemens) and greatest talent (Rodriguez) all are tarnished by cheating. It's amazing anyone still invests hard-earned money and believes in baseball, which doesn't deserve the fans who turn out because, oh, the days are warm, the beer is cold and local allegiances are robust.


The Rodriguez news is devastating, though hardly shocking, to those of us who still care about baseball for its legends, numbers and thread through time. Basically, the events of the last 10 years, when the game boomed from a post-strike haze to unprecedented attendance records, are not to be believed as anything but a big lie. If power hitters brought back baseball from the dead, it now can be said without wiggle room that the most prominent have been juiced up. Mark McGwire blew it with androstenedione in his locker and his self-indicting whiff on Capitol Hill, when he repeatedly said, "I'm not here to talk about the past." Bonds' sins will be on trial next month, even if a judge in San Francisco tosses out three positive drug tests and makes us wonder if he'll win a hometown ruling. And now comes the would-be king, A-Rod, not even bothering to deny the report Thursday when confronted by a Sports Illustrated reporter at a gym in Miami.

"You have to talk to the union," Rodriguez said.

"I'm not saying anything."

Neither did his agent, Scott Boras. Or the Yankees. Or the Rangers. The Major League Baseball Players Association, predictably, focused on the confidentiality breach involving the 2003 survey tests. "Information and documents relating to the results of the 2003 MLB testing program are both confidential and under seal by court orders," the union said in a statement. "We are prohibited from confirming or denying any allegation about the test results of any particular player(s) by the collective bargaining agreement and by court orders. Anyone with knowledge of such documents who discloses their contents may be in violation of those court orders." But Major League Baseball, while refusing direct comment for the same reason, spoke for the masses in saying it was "disturbed" by the Rodriguez report.

The grim conclusion is that the three-time MVP has been a user, one who reportedly has known for some time about his failed tests -- for testosterone and Primobolan, according to SI. If he knew, he openly lied last year when he flat-out denied any association with steroids. It was Jose Canseco, remember, who first publicly accused Rodriguez of using PEDs. Canseco may be a hopeless cartoon character who lowers himself to fighting radio personalities for money -- he couldn't even knock out Danny Bonaduce in the ring last month -- but his credibility in calling out baseball's steroids users remains high. After the Mitchell Report was released in December 2007, Canseco balked that Rodriguez wasn't on the list. "All I can say is, the Mitchell Report is incomplete," Canseco said. "I could not believe that (Rodriguez's) name was not in the report."

Last year, when he released his second tell-all book, Vindicated, Canseco wrote that he hooked up Rodriguez with a steroids dealer in the late 1990s. "I may not have seen him do the deed, but I set the whole thing up for him, just like he wanted. I saw the changes in his body in a short time. Hell, if you ask me, I did everything but inject the guy myself," Canseco wrote.

Both times, Rodriguez responded with strong denials. Days after the Mitchell report, he appeared on 60 Minutes and said, "I've never felt overmatched on the baseball field. I've always been in a very strong, dominant position. And I felt that if I did my work as I've done since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I didn't have a problem competing at any level." When asked by CBS interviewer Katie Couric if ever used steroids, human growth hormone or other performance-enhancing drugs, Rodriguez answered quickly.

"No," he said.

He remained nonchalant last spring, when he talked about steroids amid a media throng after the public drama involving Clemens and Andy Pettitte. "I have no concerns," Rodriguez said. "Right now, the game is in a very non-trusting situation with the public and our fans. Some of the things that I have accomplished -- and potentially some of the things that people think I can accomplish -- my name has come up and will probably come up again in the future. It is what it is.

"We have a very strict policy, and I think the game is making tremendous strides. And by the way, if anyone is thinking of (using) anything, if you see what Roger and Andy have been dragged through, I think the point is well-taken by everybody."

Point blank, Rodriguez was asked again if he categorically denies taking steroids, HGH or other performance enhancers.

"Sure. Yes," he said.

So, if it's true that the 2003 test is positive and he has known about it, A-Fraud also is a bald-faced liar.


Because the testing was performed months before MLB officially banned steroids use, Rodriguez won't face punishment. But you know and I know that his punishment comes in 10 days, when he reports to Yankees camp in Tampa and instantly watches his drama-queen opera soar to new, insane levels. As it is, A-Rod is the most scrutinized athlete in American sports, with his divorce and Madonna linkups dominating last summer. Now, after the Yankees spent ungodly offseason sums on pitchers C.C. Sabathia and A.J. Burnett and slugger Mark Teixeira, the pressure on Rodriguez to lower his distraction quotient and dial in another MVP season will be bigger than the skyline. This is not the way the Steinbrenners want to open the new Yankee Stadium. After former Yankees manager Joe Torre exposed in his new book that some players referred to Rodriguez as "A-Fraud," team captain Derek Jeter felt compelled to step forward last week.

"Like I've said before, we all support Alex. He's our teammate," Jeter told the Associated Press. "It seems like that we keep talking about the same things over and over again. It's not like this is a new thing that's come up. The only thing that you'd like to see going into spring training is, you'd like to see everyone talking about the excitement of the season and getting ready for the season."

Season? What season?

No doubt the Rodriguez camp will blame the players' union for the leaked test result. The feds, of course, seized the 2003 test results during the BALCO scandal. Bud Selig's people, meanwhile, will tell us how focused they are on -- cough, cough -- cleaning up the game. Said Rob Manfred, MLB's vice president of labor relations: "Under commissioner Selig's leadership, Major League Baseball remains fully committed to the elimination of the use of performance-enhancing substances from baseball. As (Selig) has said, we will continue to do everything within our power to eliminate the use of such drugs and to protect the integrity of the program."

They should have been saying such things 12 years ago, eight years ago, six years ago. There's not much more to say now, other than the obvious: When it comes to steroids, baseball has no heroes, no integrity, no leadership and no spine.