humans<\/em> love a good confession, because we identify with bad behavior (we all have plenty of it) and feel solidarity with those who own up to it. (The runner Marion Jones has been vilified some for her own recent confession of cheating her way to Olympic gold, but, boy, she sure took long enough to come clean. And we’re sure to warm up to her again ’round about the time her book comes out.)
\nAll this is mightily depressing for sports fans. It’s hard to find a sports champ who won’t break your heart these days. As a baseball nut devoted to the Boston Red Sox, I will rue the day we learn about anything improper that has boosted Boston’s winning ways these past few years. It’s bound to happen, no? It’s just part of the cycle of sports.
\nWhich is why I am heartened, as much as a Yankee-hater can be, by the recent actions of one Alex Rodriguez. When A-Rod’s agent Scott Boras announced during Game 4 of the World Series that A-Rod would opt out of his current Yankee contract (a crappy thing to do in so many ways), and later revealed that A-Rod was seeking $350 million from the Yanks, it added fuel to my A-Rod vitriol. He’s a strutter, a preener, and an occasionally cheap player, whatever his virtuoso abilities, and I was glad that the press was piling on him for his apparently unquenchable greed.
\nBut behind the scenes, A-Rod was reaching out to a friend, circumventing his agent (yay!) to tell the Yanks he had no desire to leave the team and was embarrassed by the ill-fated World Series announcement. Basically, he asked for his humble pie, and ate it. He’ll be a Yankee for years to come. If the Yanks pull off a World Series in the next decade, A-Rod’s actions in this past week will be a big reason why .
\nBetter yet, this humble-pie eater has the best chance of knocking Barry Bonds down the list of all-time home run hitters. Barring injuries, he’ll do it, and he’ll do it in pinstripes because he listened to his conscience this fall. And when he does, the all-time home run leader won’t need an asterisk by his name. (Fingers crossed.) Some might scoff at reports that the Yankees offered A-Rod financial incentives for breaking the record, but hey, if A-Rod needs a boost, better it come through a bank account than a syringe.
\nSo, I never thought I’d utter these words, but: Go A-Rod! Chase that record, and help us forget this whole sorry Barry affair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Barry Bonds is busted. He’ll probably never own up to his guilt, and his lawyers might successfully get him off or significantly reduce whatever sentence he may receive. But he’ll always be an embarrassment to baseball, and he’ll forever evoke Sudden Onset Nausea for any baseball fan who has occasion to think of the man…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Barry Bonds is busted. He’ll probably never own up to his guilt, and his lawyers might successfully get him off or significantly reduce whatever sentence he may receive. But he’ll always be an embarrassment to baseball, and he’ll forever evoke Sudden Onset Nausea for any baseball fan who has occasion to think of the man who cheated his way to baseball’s sexiest title, Home Run King.