Nothing Needs to be Said About This:

Jay won Around the Horn on Friday (which of course does not involve "winning" in the traditional sense, but work with me here; I guess you could say Tony Reali thought he was the least stupid member of the panel that day). Here's how he led off his subsequent "face time:"

A few months ago it would have been unthinkable to say that Alex Rodriguez would one day make the Hall of Fame.

So, like the title says, nothing needs to be said about that. But I think I'll post a funny picture of Jay anyways.

Completely Unexpected

What? What's that? Pete Rose would vote Alex Rodriguez into the Hall of Fame if he had a ballot? So what you're telling me is... a guy who really wants to be in the HOF, but can't get in because he did something the game finds reprehensible, would allow another guy who did something reprehensible in? Well at least we know Rose isn't a huge hypocrite. Oh wait, actually, he kind of is.

"When you take steroids you have a direct outcome of the game," Rose said. "That's the integrity of the game. And when you can change records when you do something illegal, it's just not right."

Emphasis added. But hey, at least he's not a hypocrite when it comes to the HOF balloting itself.

I'm not taking a holier than thou stance here- I actually think Rose deserves to be in, in some capacity. I'm undecided about steroid users. But the point of this post is that this is a pretty hilarious sound bite. Hey Pete, how about you go away and don't talk for a while.

PS- Happy second birthday to us. Yeah, motherfuckers. That's right. Two whole years. Counting the 2008 leap year, that's 731 days! We may be withering on the vine and dying, but we are certainly not dead yet. I expect us stick around at least another 5 or 6 months before we stop posting altogether. Also- in our first post ever, I actually tried to make a joke about Mel Kiper Jr.'s hair. I still need to kick my own ass for that. What was my next topic going to be- airplane food?

Cartoonist offers subtle jab, overt hilarity

Okay, let me try to explain the brilliant nuance behind this cartoon for some of our slower readers (Chris W, I'm looking in your direction):

You see, A-Rod is now even more hated than he was last year due to his recent admission of steroid use. "But Jack, why in the cartoon does A-Rod still has plenty of zealous fans, despite being exposed as a lying cheater?" you ask. It's quite simple, look closely at those "A-Rod fans." What common themes do we notice?

They're all ripped; the men wear skin tight shirts (some without sleaves), and the women wear bikinis highlighting their androgenous physique.

So if A-Rod is hated by almost all fans, but still has a large following among muscular, image conscious men, and huge women, then we must conclude that A-Rod's only fans are:

Gays and women who are more masculine than A-Rod himself! And no one wants those social pariahs as fans! Get it!? Hysterical!

A-Rod + Contrived Brett Favre Analogy = Ray Rotto's Newest Column

A-Rod reaching Favre Syndrome all because he didn't go the distance

An article comparing A-Rod to Favre you say? Doesn't sound like much of a stretch at all.

The Alex Rodriguez perp walk came and went without incident, a well-controlled 35-minute goat-rope that advanced his newly developed image as America's Penitent.

His next hurdle, though, is not whether he can convince the Sincerity Police, or whether he can make his teammates overcome their already well-established reservations toward him, or whether he can still satisfy the fantasy geektroids.

"Sincerity police" and "Fantasy Geektroids." I'm sure there were literally thousands of people wondering if A-Rod had won those two demographics back.

It's whether he can keep us from becoming sick to death of the sight, sound and mention of him.

Which, I'm sure, worries A-Rod a lot because he's always tried to be an omnipresent figure in sports.

Not disgusted; that's another issue entirely, and one you'll have to deal with yourselves. No, we're talking about what is rapidly becoming known as Favre Syndrome -- the reflexive revulsion of the sound of someone's name, voice or presence, or the introduction of same by another party.

I agree about Favre, but what exactly does that have to do with A-Rod?

Rodriguez is about there now, and he is about to get full-blown Favre because he didn't finish the job he has tried to tackle in the past two weeks. He left openings for people to flog his name into a flat gray paste, to the point where his name, like Favre's or LeBron James' or Terrell Owens, will come up on every slow news day, just because.

- Lebron James gets attention because he's arguably the best basketball player ever.
- A-Rod gets attention because not only is he likely to finish as the statistical leader in every major hitting category, but he's also the highest paid baseball player ever.
- Terrell Owens gets attention because he's a great wide receiver...and he's an insane attention hound.
- Brett Favre has been a mediocre QB for 4 of the past 5 years who has gotten tons of attention because of his ridiculously annoying, self-agrandizing retirement antics and the fact that "journalists" like Peter King will not remove themselves from Favre's nuts

A lot of this is determined by the 24/7 news cycle, but a lot more is determined by one of the most pernicious elements of the 24/7 -- the almost junkie-like reliance on a few big names discussed over and over and over again whether or not they've actually done something in the last day or two to merit that discussion.

This is A-Rod's fault how?

I mean, Favre has done nothing whatsoever in the last two weeks except say he isn't playing any more, and yet he is still being media-flogged to the point of national nausea.

Let me throw out a wild guess as to why this is? It's crazy; I know, but bear with me:

HE SAID THE EXACT SAME FUCKING THING LAST YEAR, AND THE MEDIA LOVES EVERYTHING FAVRE, YOU FUCKASS

And now, with Rodriguez's latest choreographed mea maxima culpa, Rodriguez is there, too. You hear his name, and you try to duck your head inside your jacket, and it will get worse as the new holes in his story are passed and crowbarred apart.

INT. A-ROD'S HOUSE - SEPTEMBER 2008

A-Rod sits in chair watching Brett Favre footage on ESPN.

A-Rod: Fuck, this Brett Favre guy is stealing all the time ESPN would normally devote to questioning whether or not I have the testicular fortitude to ever win a World Series. How can I get the spotlight on me?

ESPN switches over to a story about Barry Bonds. A-Rod stands up.

A-Rod: By Palmeiro's mustache, that's it. If I admit to taking steroids and then act very coy about the details, the media will go back to raking me over the coals like they have for the past 7 years! Excelsior!

For instance, he has seized on the "I was young and stupid" angle as his ticket out, and we will hear that over and over again in the coming months. We suspect he is trying too hard to give himself the benefit of the doubt here by calling himself an idiot, but the more he says it, the less convincing he will be.

No matter what A-Rod said, he was going to get ripped on for it. Even if he had declared that he did it so he could hit the most homeruns ever, and get to sleep with the most women ever, there would've been people on talk radio complaining:

"WHY DIDN'T HE JUST ADMIT THAT HE'S GAY!? WHAT IS HE HIDING!?"

It's great excuse when you're 10, but 10-year-olds never talk about how young and stupid they are. By the time you're 24, you don't get to haul that one out any more. But he will, largely because he thinks it's better than the alternative, which is "I was young, I did what everyone else did, and I wanted to be better than me." True that is idiocy, but it's also cynicism and condescension. And Rodriguez isn't good enough at either to make it seem like anything else.

1. Everyone's jumped all over A-Rod for saying he was young and stupid at the age of 24, which I think is moronic. He'd been in the MLB since age 18 and had been surrounded by guys doing steroids the whole time with no consequences. Does any one honestly expect him to have had the perspective to be like "Yeah everyone else is benefiting from steroids, but I shouldn't because they'll one day crack down on it, even though there's nothing to suggest that they ever will."

2. Not that it excuses A-Rod for his actions, but Giambi and Pettitte got off way easier for no good reason. Giambi never admitted to anything. Pettitte said he tried PED's once and "didn't like them." Anyone who's ever used any weight training supplement (legal or illegal) knows that you won't see the effect of anything until weeks of use, so Pettitte's story is complete bullshit, but no one cared at all.

But that's only part of the syndrome. The other part is how often we keep hearing about his spring training, down to the last fast-muscle twitch. And we will, because today's news conference left more questions behind because it was managed.

There's clearly nothing A-Rod wanted more than to be hounded by the media for the rest of 2009.

He might have saved himself if he had taken follow-ups, if he had answered every question no matter how trivial or dull-witted, and stayed there for as many hours as it took.

If you honestly believe this, then you're fucking stupid.

Why? Two reasons. One, if you're trying to throw yourself on the mercy of the court, you have to stay for as long as the court wants you. Two, if you want there to be no more questions, answer all of them at the time, or pay the price for deferred maintenance.

And what happens when he says he doesn't have an answer for questions like "exactly how many times did you use it?" "did it affect how many home runs you hit that year?" etc. The reporters say "nothing new here, let's go cover the NHL!"

Conversely, the best way to keep your name in the news well beyond its shelf-life is to limit your availability. Beating the media means giving the media more than it can eat at one sitting, and yes, there really is such a thing.

Just ask TO about how demanding attention from the media is the worst way to get it.

He didn't, because he either didn't want to or because he was advised not to. He thought 35 minutes was enough treatment for Favre Syndrome, and it isn't nearly enough. And now it may be too late.

Brett Favre : A-Rod :: Ray Rotto : Good sports journalism

Jayson Stark's Weird Take on the 1998 Home Run Chase

Stark is a pretty legit baseball mind/writer. It's rare he appears on FireJay (although I did enjoy writing this unfunny post about him way back in the blog's infancy). But I think I have to call him out for one part of this A-Rod article. What he says is so strange that it sticks out like a sore thumb and serves as a glaring distraction from his point.

At times like this, I always tell the story of what it was like to follow Mark McGwire around in September 1998. I saw this man hit 17 of his 70 home runs that season. I saw records topple. I saw powerful numbers rise and fall.

But more than that, I measured the feat I was watching by who else showed up to catch the show. And by that I mean Bruce Springsteen. And Bruce Hornsby. And Barbara Walters. And MTV. And "Good Morning America." And many, many others just like them.

Springsteen- a pretty legit inclusion. Everyone else on that list- what? Hornsby had peaked in relevance about ten years earlier. Walters was more relevant then than she is now, but still. MTV? Who gives a fuck about MTV in the context of sports? Unless they're throwing a rock n' jock celebrity softball game, I sure as hell don't. I have no idea how you could possibly gain access to lists of people who attended baseball games more than ten years ago, but if you could, I bet a five minute scan of it from Cubs and Cardinals games played the fall of 1998 would yield at least ten more relevant names than Bruce Hornsby or Barbara Walters.

I guess Stark probably made this list based off of celebrities/networks/shows he actually interacted with that fall rather than just celebrities/networks/shows he heard were in attendance. Still really hurts his article, in my opinion. "A-Rod... steroids... tainted records... holy shit, did you know Bruce Hornsby was there when Sosa hit his 64th home run in 1998? That's when you know your sport is getting big: when Hornsby starts watching."

Bruce Hornsby. What the fuck?

Reader Participation: A-Rod Roids. What Do You Think?

So this one took me by more than a little by surprise. A-Rod has tested positive for steroids at least once, according to a source whose validity has not seemed to be called into question.

What do you think? This is a complicated issue, I think. Since we all assumed that the 90's and early 00's were tainted by steroid use, on the one hand this isn't a shocker. But on the other hand, I think we generally cast a narrow net and only widen it as evidence became impossible to ignore.

I kind of turned up my nose at those who cried from mountain high (usually columnists like Jay Mariotti and other sanctimonious types) that "we can't assume anyone is claen."

Now, this still doesn't excuse not voting for Tony Gwynn. This still doesn't excuse impugning the likes of Griffey and Frank Thomas--guys who almost certainly never roided. A-Rod was a power hitter--the kind of guy whose athletic frame seemed to belie the kind of power AND speed he was simultaneously capable of.

And still I'd never really thought, even with Canseco's accusations, that he was a roider. Didn't rule it out, but didn't really think it likely. Well, here it is. What do you all make of this?

Does it not really affect your view of baseball? Did you already think A-Rod was a user? Do you not care one way or another who uses steroids? Do you think this affects only your view of A-Rod and not other power hitters of his time period? Anything.

This is important (I think). Might as well shoot the shit about it.