We all wanted to believe Alex Rodriguez, didn’t we?
We wanted to take him at his word after the 2000 season when he said winning — not just money — would determine which team he would sign with after such a stellar start to his career with the Mariners. Then he turned a down a huge offer from the Mariners, a team with a serious chance of making it to the World Series, and signed a 10-year, $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers, who were the farthest thing from a Series contender.
We wanted believe him during that interview with Katie Couric in 2007, when he looked her straight in the eye and said he did not take banned substances. Baseball fans, whether they were fans of A-Rod or not, needed to hear that after players like Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds left a stain of suspicion that may be never washed from the game.
But no. Alex Rodriguez was lying again. Caught by a Sports Illustrated report, he now says he did take banned substances from 2001-2003 while he was playing for the Rangers. He did it, he said, because of the pressure to live up to that big contract.
Rodriguez said it all happened while he was with the Rangers, speaking of a “culture” where illegal substances were prevalent and, essentially, throwing nutritionists, trainers and doctors under the bus.
What Rodriguez didn’t do was connect any of those dots to the Mariners.
It’s not like the M’s have been clean of steroid controversy. Since baseball started cracking down on banned substances, a handful of M’s minor league players have tested positive and former first baseman David Segui admitted that he’d taken human growth hormone in 1998 without the knowledge of the team’s medical staff.
We’d like to believe that all those feel-good years the Mariners gave their fans from 1995 through 2001 also were clean years from a substance standpoint. Maybe it’s naive to think they were, but how crushing would it be to learn that some of the beloved stars of those teams weren’t clean?
That’s why, when Alex Rodriguez said today that his use of banned substances happened solely under the Texas Rangers’ watch, Mariners fans had reason to feel relieved.
I just wish we could believe him.
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