Did Biogenesis ruin your Summer?

A-Rod, showing his typical intensity.

On Monday, August 5th of this year, Major League Baseball hammered several All-Star caliber players (along with some relative unknowns) including Texas Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz, San Diego Padres shortstop Everth Cabrera, and the man pictured above with suspensions of 50 games or more due to their involvement with a Miami-based clinic called Biogenesis. For the full list, check out this link: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/08/05/three-three-unknown-biogenesis-players-named-gio-gonzalez-cleared-12-total-accepting-discpline/
Since this is just one of many performance enhancing drug scandals baseball has had to deal with over the past decade or so, most fans already knew what sort of reaction to expect from the sports media. Reporters lamenting the "state of the game", blowing the players transgressions out of proportion, and letting us all know how deeply and personally they're affected by the whole mess. I'm not trying to say I think every one of these players should be free from scorn, however I found the reaction from high-profile sports media morons like Mike Lupica and Rick Reilly predictably inane, or maybe insane would be a more accurate descriptor. 

We aren't dealing with a situation like the circus that occurred during the now infamous 2003 congressional hearing when Commissioner Bud Selig and several high-profile players spent time testifying about steroids on Capitol Hill. None of these guys has denied they were using, or pulled a Sammy Sosa and pretended like they barely understood English when questioned about the issue. In fact, the most hateable player among the lot, Ryan Braun, was outed around a month before everyone else so you'd think sports columnists and the like would have had ample time to vent. For those unfamiliar with Braun's history regarding doping, he was caught red-handed in October of 2011, shortly after being named the NL MVP, when a sample he admitted for testing was found to have the textbook elevated testosterone levels that come with steroid use. His testosterone results were higher even than those detected in previous steroid cases according to this quote from an MLB source in this New York Daily News article, http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/ryan-braun-initial-ped-test-results-insanely-high-nl-mvp-lawyer-insists-client-peds-article-1.990020,
 Milwaukee Brewers star Ryan Braun’s original test for performance-enhancing drugs as the playoffs were winding down in October was “insanely high, the highest ever for anyone who has ever taken a test, twice the level of the highest test ever taken.” So, why wasn't he hammered two years ago? Well, as anyone familiar with the relationship between the MLB's union and ownership can tell you, one positive test can hardly bury a guy if a loophole is found, and there are numerous loopholes in the process for savvy players, or more likely their lawyers, to take advantage of.The loophole exploited by Braun sounds just as absurd now as it did nearly two years ago. Basically, Braun argued before an MLB arbitrator that since his urine sample was transferred from one location to another in the trunk of a car, it "could have been tampered with", and the arbitrator bought it. Obviously, the guy who's made over 50 mil playing baseball, and whose continued standing as one of the brightest young stars in the baseball sky could be derailed by this positive test, would never lie to protect his career and earning power and the guy who hauled around piss jars for a living was just out to get him. Obviously.

Ryan Braun, proudly displaying his 2011 National League MVP plaque

 The sports media skewered Braun back then, and even when he came back in 2012 and had another stellar, supposedly clean, season, (nearly resulting in a second straight MVP, he finished second in the voting that year only because Buster Posey was responsible for about half the total offense of a World Series champion Giants team) baseball fans and reporters were skeptical of his success. The general opinion did seem to be that even with the probable steroid use, Braun, like Andy Pettitte, David Ortiz and others before him, was still a pretty damn good player in his own right. If there's one thing the sports media machine won't tolerate though, it's fucking up a second time when you know all eyes are on you. Here's a great summary of writers reactions to Braun being caught doping again and suspended a couple months back:
http://deadspin.com/nation-demands-hot-ryan-braun-takes-sports-pundits-pro-881090106
My personal favorite overreaction, from Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports: Of the many things Ryan Braun is – a liar nonpareil, a serial doper, a raging narcissist... sordid, tortuous path... He is a cockroach... "asshole tax"... the walking, talking epitome of hubris... He is a cockroach. And on Monday, he went splat.
Wow. It's like Ryan Braun walked into his house and took a crap in his Cheerios, right in front of him. That's the type of animosity I reserve for people who abuse the elderly, or use the term "Islamofascist". Like Braun, Alex Rodriguez had run afoul of the MLB's testing regime before this current incident. He also has had one of the worst relationships with the media of any professional athlete out there today. Not since Barry Bonds can I think of an elite player sportswriters delighted this much in verbally assaulting. Unlike Braun, however, A-Rod has appealed his suspension and is still in the Yankees lineup today. As you can imagine, this has steamed all sorts of clams, and even led one writer to compare him to recently convicted mobster Whitey Bulger. On the other hand, people who admittedly never even liked A-Rod have come to his defense. The general opinion being that even though he's a "liar and serial doper" just like Braun, the length of his suspension, 211 games, is ridiculous, and smacks of Commissioner Selig's typical policy of trying to establish a legacy as being the guy who "cleaned up the game", hoping we all conveniently forget that he turned a blind eye to doping in the late '90s and early part of this century when guys like Sosa and Bonds were making the league millions.

The illustrious MLB Commissioner

 As many more familiar with the game than myself have already said, the true purpose of levying this massive suspension against A-Rod seems to be to permanently ban him from baseball before he can do as Bonds and McGwire did before him, and stamp his name permanently in the record books after being exposed as an "unclean" player. Even if A-Rod were to be relegated to a designated hitter til the end of his career, it's still likely that he'd play at least one or two more years and end up with over 700 career home runs, something only Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and the aforementioned Bonds have done previously. My personal opinion is that even in an era of skewed home run numbers and guys who were more muscular in their late 30's than when they broke into the league, Bonds and A-Rod were exceptional talents both offensively and defensively, even though Bonds pulled off fewer defensive highlight plays as he got older and larger in San Francisco than his days as a young buck in Pittsburgh. For Selig, the Baseball Writers of America (they decide who gets into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY) and others to continue to show such a lack of perspective is disappointing. A-Rod probably deserves a suspension, but the seeming effort to make us all forget he ever existed is pointless and will fail, just as it did with Bonds when it became inevitable he would break Hank Aaron's home run record. Neither Bonds or A-Rod were drug-induced flash in the pans like Brady Anderson or Troy Glaus who put up huge numbers for a year or two and then vanished. They're both legitimate first ballot Hall of Famers, and even after his transgressions if Braun comes back and keeps churning out 30-plus home run seasons he will be, too. If the boring blowhards who currently pollute the sports pages with their "commentary" want something to rail against there are plenty of other, more worthy, targets.

Update-10/5/13: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/24001081/alex-rodriguez-is-suing-mlb-claiming-a-witch-hunt
The lawsuit specifically accuses Major League Baseball of engaging in “tortious interference,” essentially interfering with Rodriguez's existing contracts and future business relationships.
The suit, in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, came just days after Rodriguez's lawyers began appealing the 211-game ban issued by Major League Baseball. It is unclear if the suit will affect the arbitration hearing, which is taking place behind closed doors.
The suit does not address whether Rodriguez used banned substances. Major League Baseball did not immediately comment on the lawsuit.

It will be very interesting to see how this turns out, though I thunk there's around a 90% chance A-Rod gets crushed by Selig's lawyers in court.