drugs & alcoholsports

Is A-Rod’s steroid use different than a guy who cheats on his wife?

He cheated. Alex Rodriguez cheated. He may claim ignorance, but honestly, does that really matter? If a guy gets a blow job at a strip club and later tells his wife that he didn’t really think he was cheating — there is no doubt that he was, in fact, still cheating. The question is, if you were that guy, if you did something wrong (really wrong to some people, and so-so wrong to others), how would you handle the situation? Maybe you aren’t that dumb. Maybe you know better and would never be in this predicament. Maybe you never did anything illegal or stupid your entire life (even when you were 20). There are probably very few of you out there. In any case, what happens next?

Does your wife forgive your indiscretion? Do you start marriage counseling to “figure out” (as if you didn’t already know) why you strayed? Do you tell yourself it’s not like you were falling in love with someone else, you were just getting off every once in a while? What if you went back and got that blow-job twice a month for six months but then your wife found your credit card receipts? You have to fess up now, but how do you gain her trust again? Some women would write you off but others would work through it with you. The fans of New York are a tough bunch. The baseball writers are even tougher. They both expect more.

So what happens now? Do we string Alex up or let him play out the next nine years for the Yankees (or whatever his remaining overpriced contract is for) and see what he can do? Bill Clinton did not have “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky either. Do we forgive A-Rod and see if he can play worth his pay?

I am certainly not an expert on baseball but I know there were high expectations for Alex. He was going to “save” the game from all of this steroid use. He was going to break Barry Bonds’s tainted home run record and bring respectability back to the game. Oh well… being a fan is difficult sometimes. Alex isn’t the savior. Can we move on?

Print This Post Print This Post

7 Responses to “Is A-Rod’s steroid use different than a guy who cheats on his wife?”

  1. I don’t think what A-Rod did is analagous to cheating on his wife. If A-Rod were secretly playing for another team when he had sworn to Yankee fans that he would only play for their team, then they’d be similar.

    This is more like, he was nailing his wife but never told her that it was the Viagra and penis implants that were giving her all of those orgasms, and not the real him, and now she feels betrayed to learn the truth, even though she liked the sex.

  2. LMAO… that’s really funny.

  3. It is not so much about “moving on.” In fact, I’ve always hated that expression. That, along with, “just get over it.” We love to throw these words out there because we want to believe that we are forgiving enough and strong enough to plow past whatever “it” is.

    We live in a country obsessed with sports and where athletes command salaries exponentially higher than our doctors, our scientists, or those who work hard to improve and change lives. We throw parties to watch the athletes play, we attend games even when we really can’t afford it (the All Star game this weekend was sold out amid the worst recession of our time), we paint our faces with our team’s colors and in drunken public displays, pledge our undying allegiance to the team we love (well, at least Red Sox fans do). We love our sports. It’s the American Way.

    That said, he will be forgiven. A society that places so much importance on a guy like A-Rod has to “just get over it” or else we will be lost. We can’t accept that he’s not a superhuman. We can’t face the fact that he’s just like everyone else.

    I don’t think he deserves our forgiveness. He cheated. He lied. He gets many millions to do what he does. He lives a lifestyle that most of us can only get a glimpse of from our leaky, about-to-be-foreclosed windows.

    When a man is morally bankrupt–enough to let down an entire sports-obsessed culture, enough to let down all the children who idolize him, and enough to take credit for achievements he did not honestly earn–he is not worth the mud on his cleets.

  4. Why is it a husband cheating on his wife and not the other way around????

  5. Josh: Simply because a woman couldn’t get a blow-job — so it didn’t sound as good. The rules absolutely apply the other way around.

  6. Scott – I just choked on my water – that was classic.

  7. Otherise, in response to this post, I’m flat out sick of juiced up ball players getting paid millions of dollars, eating up endorsement deals and comparing themselves to a level of player that simply doesn’t exist in this day and age. Ruth and Gehrig must be looking down and shaking their heads at these guys. It’s pathetic and the reality is that any natural talent and/or ability he had is now secondary to the fact that he juiced. He’s over.

Discussion Area - Leave a Comment