{"id":2017,"date":"2009-02-09T22:10:30","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T22:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=2017"},"modified":"2010-04-02T15:34:19","modified_gmt":"2010-04-02T14:34:19","slug":"the-impact-of-a-rods-admission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=2017","title":{"rendered":"The impact of A-Rod’s admission"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 23.00 GMT tonight, ESPN will air an interview<\/a> with Alex Rodriguez in which the man seen by many as the best in the game will admit to using a banned substance between 2001 and 2003.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

The magnitude of the story will become clear over the coming days when baseball will make a rare appearance in the sports sections of British daily newspapers.\u00c2\u00a0 The image of baseball will take a hit, but what does the news really mean for the sport as a whole?\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n

A-Rod’s admission relates to drug use during a period when MLB did not have a regular drug-testing programme.\u00c2\u00a0 From the mid-1980s onwards, the use of performance-enhancing drugs\u00c2\u00a0(PEDs)\u00c2\u00a0became prevalent and the vast majority of people (players, managers, owners, the Commissioner’s Office, the Players Union etc) turned a blind eye.\u00c2\u00a0 With no penalties in place, there was a tacit acceptance that taking drugs was simply a part of the game.<\/p>\n

When pitchers and catchers start reporting to their Spring Training base in a couple of days’ time, they will begin preparations for a very different MLB competition to that of the 1990s and early 2000s.\u00c2\u00a0 A drug-testing programme is now well-established and players are being caught and punished.\u00c2\u00a0 As with any such programme, it is not perfect.\u00c2\u00a0 It is weaker than programmes used in some sports (e.g. athletics) and stronger than others (e.g. the NFL).\u00c2\u00a0 There will still be individuals who think they can (and possibly do) cheat the system.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, what MLB undoubtedly does have now is a clear stance that the use of PEDs is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.<\/p>\n

Peter Gammons’ interview with Rodriguez will be analysed and scrutinised by many, from sports presenters to body language experts and the regular fan on the street.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone will have an opinion on whether his comments are genuine or not.\u00c2\u00a0 When he claims “I was young, I was stupid, I was na\u00c3\u00afve”, it’s easy to roll your eyes and think you’ve heard it all before.<\/p>\n

But his central message that “back then, [baseball] was a different culture” is not a mere buck-passing statement.\u00c2\u00a0 It is the most important truth relating to this whole subject.\u00c2\u00a0 Back then you could<\/strong> take PEDs, a significant amount of players did<\/strong> take PEDs and clearly enough people saw a benefit from doing so that they thought they should<\/strong> take PEDs to gain an advantage.<\/p>\n

That’s not to exonerate any player from personal responsibility.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone has to make their own decisions in life and many were able to resist the temptation.\u00c2\u00a0 What it does mean though is that demonising individuals, while tempting, won’t get us too far in terms of understanding why this situation developed and in learning lessons from it.<\/p>\n

One lesson A-Rod (and his advisers) has learned is that when you get caught, the best approach is to admit to your previous mistakes.\u00c2\u00a0 Rodriguez is a genuinely great player.\u00c2\u00a0 There is every reason to believe that it wasn’t the use of PEDs for a limited period of his career that made him great and makes him so today.\u00c2\u00a0 However, he will always have that black mark against his name.\u00c2\u00a0 There can be no stronger deterrent to any young player considering the use of PEDs.<\/p>\n

The weight of the past will continue to be a burden for the sport to deal with.\u00c2\u00a0 The ‘steroid era’ will provoke serious questions when comparing its signature players to those of previous generations and that is a criticial point for a game that has always valued its history so highly.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet the immediate legacy of this era is that baseball\u00c2\u00a0has\u00c2\u00a0made significant progress in cleaning up the sport.\u00c2\u00a0 That fact shouldn’t get\u00c2\u00a0lost in the mix when news of this story, and the others that will no doubt follow, is reported in Britain and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At 23.00 GMT tonight, ESPN will air an interview with Alex Rodriguez in which the man seen by many as the best in the game will admit to using a banned substance between 2001 and 2003.\u00c2\u00a0 The magnitude of the story will become clear over the coming days when baseball will make a rare appearance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553],"class_list":["post-2017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2017"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7280,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2017\/revisions\/7280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}