What A Week!

Ok, so where to start....let's begin with A-Rod.

As you all know I was on vacation last week, so imagine my surprise when I found out that A-Rod had decided to negotiate a contract sans Boras. I nearly choked on my pina colada. I'm not sure how to feel about this. On the one hand we get the greatest player in baseball who will surely bring in huge revenues as he approaches Barry Bonds* home run record. On the other hand whether or not he realized the error of his ways with Scott Boras, I still feel betrayed by him. It's going to take a lot for A-Rod to gain the respect of the organization and of course the fans, but since we are stuck with him for the next decade (which means ten more years of pictures of A-Rod with a purse, sigh) we are all going to have to learn to get along. In the end this may turn out to be a good thing since it will most likely end the Boras era. After all, Boras looks like the biggest loser in all of this. I'm guessing that he'll be run out of the majors, in fact he just lost Kenney Rogers as a client for chasing the money more than listening to the wishes of his client. Sure, A-Rod is still making an obscene amount of money, more than any one player is worth, but if he can get that post season monkey off his back, apologize to the fans, and bring legitimacy back to the home run record then I think that in the end he will someday finally become a true Yankee. Until then I am sleeping with one eye open.

Bonds

Come on, is anyone surprised at all by this? I sure wasn't. The question is should Bonds be allowed into the hall of fame when he is ultimately found guilty, and trust me he will be. In my opinion if and when he is found guilty his chance of making it to the hall of fame are over. He will become the next Pete Rose, a player who should be there, but because of poor choices that were bad for the game his reputation will be too tarnished to join the ranks of the legends. Sure, Cobb had a bad attitude, Ruth was an overweight womanizing alcoholic, and Mantle had more personal demons than you can count. The difference is that these guys never cheated, or at least were never caught. On top of that they never openly and knowingly lied about it. So Barry, your day in court will come and judgment will be rendered, but before you call yourself a victim think of all the kids who because of you feel that the only way they can achieve greatness is to use steroids. Think of all of the bodies that you have destroyed. Then think about who the real victims are here.

I wish I had more time to write about all of this because frankly this has been one of the craziest weeks for baseball in recent memory. In the meantime I'll leave you with this weeks poll question. I'll be interested to see what people have to say.