{"id":966,"date":"2009-02-08T09:33:44","date_gmt":"2009-02-08T16:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/08\/a-rod-should-have-listened-better-in-dare\/"},"modified":"2009-03-18T20:16:46","modified_gmt":"2009-03-19T03:16:46","slug":"a-rod-should-have-listened-better-in-dare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/08\/a-rod-should-have-listened-better-in-dare\/","title":{"rendered":"A-Rod Should Have Listened Better in D.A.R.E."},"content":{"rendered":"

Drug Awareness Resistance Education, big guy.<\/em><\/p>\n

So\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Alex Rodriguez took steroids.\u00c2\u00a0 What do we do here?\u00c2\u00a0 Do we feign shock and outrage?\u00c2\u00a0 Gather our torches and sharpen our pitchforks?\u00c2\u00a0 As a fan of the Yankees, do I start fretting over his roughly 30 year contract?\u00c2\u00a0 How about the fact that a guy that already liked to choke on his own spittle in big spots will now never have another at-bat without hearing chants of A-Roid, A-Fraud, or any other variation?<\/p>\n

Whatever we do, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pretty clear that Rodriguez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legacy has been tainted.\u00c2\u00a0 I could spend 5,000 words looking into all the facets that have come together to comprise this mess.\u00c2\u00a0 I could address the arguments that steroid use in the early part of the decade was not banned by the MLB.\u00c2\u00a0 I could talk about how the entire decade of records, numbers, and statistics should be put in its own wing in the Hall of Fame.\u00c2\u00a0 But, honestly, Buster Olney and others have already done so<\/a> better and more eloquently than I could.\u00c2\u00a0 Like Buster Olney said, Rodriguez was supposed to be our savior, the light at the end of the tunnel guiding us through the darkness of the steroid era.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s become another scalp on Jose Canseco\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s belt.<\/p>\n

So, what happened?\u00c2\u00a0 One theory keeps running through my head.\u00c2\u00a0 As a middle school teacher, I constantly see social interactions distilled to their most basic and primal forms.\u00c2\u00a0 Think about watching a group of middle school boys during recess.\u00c2\u00a0 You have the athletes playing a game of whatever on one side, the non-athletes chilling on the swings or flipping a ball around while they talk about world domination, and then you have the other kids.\u00c2\u00a0 These are the kids that fall in-between.\u00c2\u00a0 Some excel at one sport, some have other bankable skills, but for whatever reason, they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fit into either group.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the proverbial square pegs looking for a round hole.\u00c2\u00a0 And some will do whatever it takes to fit in: insulting or bullying weaker kids, doing whatever they are told by the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153cool\u00e2\u20ac\u009d kids, or hoping to draw others to them with extreme behavior.<\/p>\n

When these kids wind up in a social setting, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something awkward about them.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re tolerated by their peers, but the relationships don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go much further than that.\u00c2\u00a0 Alex Rodriguez is one of those kids.\u00c2\u00a0 He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a socially awkward and aloof 34-year old man that always wanted to but never learned how to assimilate into a group of peers.<\/p>\n

Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe me?\u00c2\u00a0 Watch him for a season.\u00c2\u00a0 During the triumphant mosh pits that ensue after a walk-off win, he sprints around looking for someone to celebrate with, then gives whomever he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s found an awkward white guy high five.\u00c2\u00a0 This always reminds me of Eli Manning sprinting 30 yards after the 2007-2008 playoff game in Lambeau Field, before finally grabbing and hugging the punter.\u00c2\u00a0 While Melky Cabrera and Robinson Cano engage in complex, 16-step handshakes, A-Rod becomes Lenny from Of Mice and Men<\/em>, clapping people too hard on the back or missing their hands as they pass.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s standing at home plate of the Home Run Derby wearing a suit while his teammates wear jeans and baseball caps; trying to meekly slap a baseball out of the glove of a pitcher, whom he outweighs by 50 lbs and could have run over without a second thought; or leaving his wife and child for an aging pop star mainly because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an aging pop star, A-Rod is always that guy that never knew how to fit in, but desperately wanted to.<\/p>\n

Want more proof?\u00c2\u00a0 Watch this Guitar Hero commercial<\/a> (speaking of which, between this incident and Michael Phelps\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 recent issues, if you were Kobe Bryant or Tony Hawk, wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you try to bury any and all copies of this commercial?\u00c2\u00a0 With their money, they could afford to hire Nicholas Cage from National Treasure, Jack Bauer, or The Rock to get the job done quickly and quietly).<\/p>\n

So, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s my point?\u00c2\u00a0 Think back to your experiences in the D.A.R.E. classroom.\u00c2\u00a0 Reasons 1-30 why kids resort to using and experimenting with drugs all boil down to peer pressure.\u00c2\u00a0 If anyone ever needed to be asked if he would jump off the Brooklyn Bridge if his friends did, it would be Alex Rodriguez.\u00c2\u00a0 Is this the only reason he would have used steroids?\u00c2\u00a0 Of course not, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a theory you probably won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get at ESPN.<\/p>\n

In the end though, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a long way from being out from under the shadows of the steroid era.\u00c2\u00a0 I honestly tried to write this piece two times before I hit on something that worked.\u00c2\u00a0 Each time, I got a paragraph in, got disgusted, and closed my work without saving it.\u00c2\u00a0 As a fan, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve become so jaded by the Mitchell Report, the BALCO investigations, and the grand jury hearings that it would take something catastrophic to astonish me.\u00c2\u00a0 When the news comes that a ballplayer drank goat urine as a performance enhancer, a la Beer Fest, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s when I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be shocked.\u00c2\u00a0 For now, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to sit back, assume that most players were guilty of something, and look forward to the day that these types of stories don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t surface every few months.\u00c2\u00a0 Until then, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to play some Guitar Hero.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you think Alex\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mom will let him sleep over?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Drug Awareness Resistance Education, big guy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}