Mike, On Rooting for A-Rod (MLB)

Editor's Note: This column title begins with the author's name, as will all future guest columns. Of which there will hopefully be many.

I never thought I’d actually get to the point in my life where I’d say this, but I’m rooting for Alex Rodriguez.

Hold on. Before you all chuck rotten vegetables at me, I did not say “New York Yankees.” I refuse to ever root for the bastards of baseball. A-Rod, however, has my full support.

Why?

Because he needs to pass Barry Bonds.

I wrote an article in October of 2005 for this very website that pleaded with Bonds, whom WFAN radio personality Steve Somers refers to simply as “Barroid,” to retire. He was currently at 708 homeruns, and I didn’t want to see him hit 709, much less 715 or 756. Unfortunately, he hit both of those marks, and implied recently that he’s even considering returning for another season after this one because he finds himself less than 100 hits shy of 3,000 for his career. According to Barry Balco, his godfather Willie Mays has always wanted to see Bonds get to that benchmark, even more so than Aaron’s record.

Wake me up when I should care.

Honestly, I’m sick of even talking about this person, but it’s the hot topic in sports, so for my return column, there wasn’t much of a better idea. Here’s the thing: Bonds is a liar. Bonds is a cheat. Bonds is an arrogant, obnoxious individual who cares about no one besides himself. For those reasons, even more than the steroids, I dislike him.

The problem I have is that Bonds was a Hall-of-Famer before he ever used performance enhancing drugs. Look at the numbers he’s amassed: career .298 average, 514 stolen bases, and a .444 OBP. Some of those are a bit inflated because of the ‘roids, but especially with regards to the SB numbers, most are pre-1998, i.e. pre-McGwire and Sosa. Bonds was widely regarded, along with Ken Griffey Jr., as the premier baseball player of his generation. In ’98, however, it was Sosa and McGwire who captivated audiences and garnered the national media attention with the great home run chase, and Bonds couldn’t handle it. Someone told him he could do what those two did, and Barry’s ego being what it is, he went after it.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of blame to go around with this. Bud Selig and MLB executives for turning a blind eye as the game tried to rebound from the strike, which was partly their fault anyway. The other half of the blame, at least with regards to the strike and disregard for drug testing, goes to Donald Fehr and the Players’ Association. Regardless of that, however, Bonds could still have been just like Cal Ripken Jr. or Tony Gwynn, who were both recently inducted into the Hall, or even like Griffey, who with all the injuries and lack of upper body growth clearly steered clear of the juice. Those guys simply kept their egos in check and relied on their God-given talent to hit a little white ball with a little brown stick. Instead, Barroid found Victor Conte, and the rest, as they say, is history.

So now I root for A-Rod. Griffey sits at 587, but I don’t see him pulling a Bonds and smacking 73 homeruns at age 38, so I think he’s going to fall shy. Alex, however, hit number 500 on the same day Bonds hit 755, leaving him 255 shy of Mr. Large Head (see kids, stay in school and you too can do simple arithmetic). At only 32 years of age, I think it’s a no-brainer to take the over on an A-Rod line of 255 more homeruns in his career. And I really hope it happens, so that all this talk of steroids and asterisks will be unnecessary.

Well, at least until Jose Canseco’s next book.