One of the original Kings of Comedy, Steve Harvey, used to say the main problem for men in relationships is that we never think our lies out far enough. Men think out to level 4 of the lie, but women tend to investigate whatever men say out to level 10. By the time they get to level 5 they know we're lying and it's just a matter of how big a hole we dig ourselves. Well, congrats, Alex Rodriguez, for the first time in a long time, you get to be the man in a scenario. Unfortunately, the New York media are playing the role of the women in your life and without doing much leg work, they're unravelling your web of bullshit.
First Alex said he never took steroids - didn't need to. Then it was OK, fine, he took them, but he was young and naive... and hey, did you hear the lady doing the story is nuts? Yeah, she's stalking him. Only, no, she wasn't and he had to apologize to her (privately, mind you; slander in public, apologize in private. I hate people who do that.). Then he had his press conference at spring training where he said the substance was something he bought over the counter in the Dominican Republic, it was his cousin who injected him and he stopped in 2003. Well, today comes reports that the substance he took is illegal in the Dominican Republic (so much for the over the counter claim), that the "cousin" is actually not a blood relative and is instead the front man for a steroid dealer who was banned from all clubhouses by the league in 2001. And, oh yeah, that steroid dealer travelled constantly with Alex as recently as 2007.
Did he think that people would just accept whatever explanations he gave and move on? Of course they were going to look into his claims. Now, there are two ways Rodriguez can handle this: He can shut up, never say another word on the matter and therefore not give any more fuel to the fire. They can't uncover any more lies if he doesn't tell any more lies. He has zero credibility right now. At this point if he said the sky was blue 15 reporters would call NASA and check. Or, he can stop apologizing for what he's been caught doing, get ahead of it by admitting all this stuff and anything else he may be hiding before someone else finds it.
He needs to take a page out of the Charles Barkley book here. What Barkley did (drinking and driving) is immeasurably worse than what Alex did. While a steroids admission tarnishes his legacy, it doesn't really hurt anyone else (I don't want to hear this whole "What about the children?" crap anymore). However, Charles has handled this so much better than Rodriguez. Charles' apology on TNT was very well done: "Yep, I suck. I'm very sorry for my DUI. What I did was stupid. I'm stupid. Its unacceptable, I deserve to be fired but I'm lucky enough to get a second shot. I screwed up and I'm sorry. I'm getting counselling and I promise it won't happen again. If it does I'm gone and I know it." Everyone loves Chuck and no one outside of New York likes Alex that much - there is a reason for that. I can only imagine that there is still more that will come out about Rodriguez in the coming months, and the games haven't even started yet.
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