Our Last Post On Alex Rodriguez Until The Next Post On Alex Rodriguez

Bud Selig, Working His Way Through College

Perhaps the most important thing about the ongoing Alex Rodriguez saga is this: nobody is going to change their mind. If you think Rodriguez is the lyingest, cheating-est dirtbag that ever bagged dirt and he shoulda been fed to rabid weasels, then you're going to think that no matter what happens from here on in. If you're a tinfoil ballcap type who thinks that the whole thing was trumped up to give the Yankees payroll relief (so they could free up money for Tanaka, who would then be on the stage in the US's biggest media market - see? It plays!) you will always think that the whole thing was a setup and that this was done for the Steinbrennerbros' benefit. And if you believe that the entire hootenanny was Bud Selig's witch hunt against a player who made him look bad - imagine Bud as Thunderbolt Ross and Rodriguez as the Hulk and you're getting there - then you are never going to change your mind. Further debate at this point is a waste of perfectly good hot air that could be better spent debating if the Yankees are really chasing Logan Forsythe for a third base platoon, or if they're just drunk.

That being said, we here at Sportsthodoxy have a formal take on the whole affair. We are not interested in being called steroid apologists, nor are we interested in wallowing in a debate that has a signal-to-noise ratio comparable to the last twenty minutes of Metal Machine Music. We just think:

• That Bud Selig certainly has a personal vendetta against Alex Rodriguez, and that if you put a cape and glasses on him and gave him a staff, he'd be a dead ringer for the old Fantastic Four villain Mole Man.
• That it is almost certain that Alex Rodriguez used PEDs, and that under the terms of the CBA he should be suspended
• That his suspension should be in accordance with the CBA, which is what you do with something you bargained collectively.
• That his suspension should not be a number of games equivalent to something the arbitrator, Selig, Rob Manfred, or anybody else pulled out of their butts.
• That Anthony Bosch and his merry crew of scumbags are a blight on baseball in South Florida, and that's with Jeff Loria there to compare them to.
• That anyone who believes anything Anthony Bosch is telling them, particularly his paid-for testimony, is equal parts naive and stupid. Con men tell suckers what they want to hear. Bosch is a con man. The rest is an exercise for the student.
• That Rodriguez was a jerk for introducing Bosch to as many players as he did.
• That MLB is a bunch of immoral idiots for climbing into bed with the scumbag.
• That cheerfully climbing into bed with a scumbag in order to nail a guy, breaking your own rules in the process, is as worthy of contempt as the original crime. This is not a cop show, and there is no humorless police captain telling MLB that dammit, they break the rules but they get results. This is a multi-billion dollar business committing potentially illegal acts right out in the open where everyone can see them.
• That the last guy to look into a scumbag's eyes and see he was telling the truth was GW Bush, and the eyes he was looking into were Putin's. Let me know who that one turns out, Rob Manfred.
• That the canned puff piece on the arbitrator's verdict in the A-Rod case was the sort of thing William Randolph Hearst would have been proud of.
• That if baseball spent one-tenth the effort on the Oakland stadium situation that they did chasing Rodriguez, the A's would be safely ensconced in San Jose by now in a stadium that did not feature random sewage geysers and tarps in the upper deck.
• That single issue voters who think that stamping out PEDs in the game justifies any excess or overreach will never, ever be satisfied.
• And that A-Rod's lawyers are probably better at this "law" thing than you are. Unless you're Craig Calcaterra.

That is all.