Today's Max Kellerman show was dominated by the Alex Rodriguez steroid controversy. (No during the show, Max did not refer to Alex Rodriguez as A-Roid, that is a product of my odd sense of humor). The following is my brief take on the portions of the show which I was able to listen to today.
Max started the show by assigning classifications for various types of players in the steroid era. The highest class was the known steroid users which Max defined as Bonds, Sosa and McGwire. The second tier was the accused steroid users - those who have been named by others but there has been no proof or admission of steroid use. The third class was the suspicious class. Max defined this group as consisting of players who had either subtle physical changes in their physique or whose game improved later in their careers when it should have decreased. The fourth class was the "everyone else" group. Max defined these as players who were "maybe yes, maybe no" steroid users where people would not be surprised to hear they were juicers. The final group of players were assigned the "no way" moniker. Max explained that if a person were to hear that one of these player used steroids it would evoke a "no way" reaction. Max identified Derek Jeter as one of these types of players. [Max actually named players for each of the aforementioned groups, but out of an abundance of caution I will omit those names from this post].
Max later discussed how the A-Roid revelation was the Watergate of the steroid era. This has been a common theme over the last few weeks on the Max Kellerman show as in discussing the Joe Torre book he indicated that the revelation that A-Roid had a "single white female obsession with Derek Jeter" was like catching Nixon. Similarly, on today's show Max indicated that people always had a suspicion that the President lied, cheated or stole, but could still retain their naivete that he was an honorable man. Once Nixon was exposed, people lost their ability to give him the benefit of the doubt. Similarly, now that A-Rod has been revealed as A-Roid, people will not be able to easily explain a player's marked improvement or prodigious skills.
Later, Max developed the idea that the impact of the steroids era is that players who are not juicers will still be suspects now that A-Roid has been exposed as a juicer. He gave examples of certain players who had early success but then blossomed later. Other examples were players who maintained a constant high level later into their careers. Unfortunately, guys who look good will be forever tarnished because they could be compared to steroid users.
I want to just take a moment to discuss one point that came out of the Peter Gammons interview which was on 1050 ESPN at 6 PM. [Yes, I know that Max Kellerman did not discuss the interview as the excerpts were not made public until later in the day]. When asked why he took the roids, Alex Rodriguez talked about how when he got to Texas after signing the richest contract in baseball, he wanted to prove to everyone that he was the greatest player in the game. This answer shows that A-Roid is still delusional and has not owned up to his actions. By using performance enhancing drugs, a player does not prove he is the best. Instead, he proves that only through cheating is he capable of being the best player in the game.
Max's discussion of how the A-Roid saga has become the Watergate of the steroids era has its roots in Torah thought. There is a well established Torah principle of "Maaras ayin" that sometimes we refrain from permitted activity because people might think that we have done something which is illegal and either: (1) draw the conclusion that the activity is permitted or (2) believe that the actor is an unethical person. Some examples are the fact that collector of the half shekel would wear clothes which contained no hem so that he could not be accused of secreting the coins in his clothes (Yevamos 102b) or not leaving laundry out to dry on Shabbos because it might appear that the laundry was done on Shabbos (Shabbos 146b). In order to avoid giving the wrong idea, we refrain from certain actions so that people do not believe that we have done something wrong.
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2 comments:
Though I agree that cheating should not be tolerated, I feel obligated to remind you that it was not cheating at the time. The substances were not banned until 2004.
The substances may not have been banned by baseball, but they were illegal. The baseball rulebook does not specifically bar players from poisoning their opponents. Does that mean that its not cheating to spike the other team's gatorade with poison and send their star players to the hospital so that they have to use a scrub and lose? If its against the law, you don't need a rule book to tell you that it violates the rules of the game as well.
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