Stick To A Side

Any day now Yankee slugger and admitted steroid-user Alex Rodriguez is going to hit his 600th career homerun, a total that has only been reached by six other players in history. Unlike a few years ago when Barry Bonds was chasing that number, no one outside of Yankee fans seems to be particularly excited about him approaching this milestone. Part of it has to do with the fact that baseball fans have become numb to homerun numbers, but the key factor may be that since it might not happen for another week it becomes more like one of those things people only care about once it has actually happened. Whatever the reason, because of this lack of anticipation the other day there was a column on ESPN in which the writer questioned why Alex hitting #600 wasn't a bigger deal to fans, pointing out that even though homerun numbers were inflated in the steroid era, it is still an historic number. I found this ironic, because when Rodriguez first admitted to taking steroids every analyst on every ESPN platform was yelling into their microphone how this admission forever tainted his legacy, skewered his numbers and meant Rodriguez was never going to be in the Hall of Fame. You can't tell us in one breath that everything a guy did for the last 10 years should be looked at with skepticism and then wonder why we aren't more excited to celebrate his achievements in the next.

Baseball might be a team sport, but it is more about individual statistics than any other. When those numbers become invalid, it is pretty much the same as the player's career becoming invalid. Besides, the baseball writers who have decided that they must be the keepers of the sanctity of the Hall of Fame (which is comical when a guy like Ty Cobb is in there) have made it clear that no one who admits to taking any performance enhancing drugs are going to be allowed in. This basically means that it doesn't matter what kinds of numbers Rodriguez puts up, so why should we care if he eventually hits 700 or even 800? Another thing working against Rodriguez is the fact that for years we heard story after story of how he was never a particularly good teammate and was more concerned with his public image than anything else. It's kind of hard to root for a guy when you suspect the people who spend the most time with him aren't too excited about his achievement either. Also, he's a Yankee, which means that no baseball fans have mixed feelings about him - it's either full-on love or full-on hate and it became clear years ago which side most of the country came down on. I will say this for him, at least Rodriguez is serving as an interesting test case. When all the steroid news first broke people wondered how the people who were caught using performance enhancing drugs were going to be treated by the fans as they approached historic numbers. Now we have our answer - with indifference.

-Since we're already dumping on baseball today, why not one more thing: It seems like every year the Hall of Fame inducts someone who has been on the ballot for a dozen years and has always come up short, but now the voters just got sick of seeing their name on the ballot and finally voted them in. Personally, I have never understood why some people are left on a ballot for so long - either you are a Hall of Famer or you are not. I get that the jack-offs who do the voting are never going to vote anyone in unanimously because of some idiotic tradition, but I still trust them enough to know right away whether a guy should make it or not. If you haven't been voted in by your fifth year of eligibility then my guess is you weren't that good. You shouldn't need time and distance to make people's memories of your career fonder to the point they can be talked into voting for you. It should be a gut reaction while you were playing; if voters have to be sold on you then you probably aren't a Hall of Famer. Oh, but congratulations on your election, Andre Dawson.