Torre Told Us

You know what? And I'm sure you couldn't care less, but A-Rod is too precious. He admits the steroid use, but says it was too hot in the summer and felt "the weight of the world" so he had to take the steroids. We all have excuses (I've got my own. I blame the sun, too, as well as my 57-year-old deltoids, the crummy lie behind a tree after an otherwise manly drive, etc.)

For all his amazing talents, Rodriguez is breathtakingly silly. Maybe it's just me, but I would have told everybody to go to hell. Yeah, I took 'em. Sue me. The stuff works.

Nevertheless, spare me that the rules of major league baseball did not ban them. The MLB does not trump the laws of the United States. It is illegal to to ingest these drugs without a prescription. My 79-year-old mother proclaimed steroids a wonder drug after a doctor prescribed them for her injured hip. She hit no home runs last year, but was able to walk around New York when she came to visit.

Of course, Rodriguez took them. They work. Why does he have to pretend to fools like me who are sports fans that it matters. So what? Hey, if the right guard for the Buffalo Bills, whoever he is, made a key block to spring a running back for a touchdown and somebody told us he was a bit too muscular because of steroids, I'm sure the fans upstate would proclaim "there is no gambling at Bushwood, sir." Right.

The right guard and Bills fans would laugh.

Joe Torre's book is right. The guy's a bit consumed with himself. I'm thrilled, though, that he wants to help kids.

Pump Me Up

All the outrage about A-Rod allegedly taking steroids (as reported by SI) misses a larger point. How about all the little boys who died of pneumonia before penicillin? It could be argued that recovery from pneumonia with the benefit of antibiotics would be an unfair advantage against the ballplayer who managed to survive without the benefit of modern science.

Steroids and HGH and whatever a chemist comes up with next year should be available to anyone who wants to take the risk. Should someone not take Tylenol for a headache?

Please, baseball is too precious about this. Does football care that behemoths on their lines take substances that increase their strength and girth? Of course not. It should be up to them. If you don't want to do it, it's a free country. Find another line of work.

Just put a bunch of asterisks in the almanacs and get on with it. The world changes exponentially. If a pitcher adds a few mphs and a hitter doesn't increase his bat speed by the same amount, then it's unfair.

But life is unfair, and to dwell in a dream past is to live without penicillin. I guess we must, though. To do otherwise would incinerate the myth that we used to walk five miles in the snow to school. I did this once and nearly froze to death before a friendly motorist picked me up.

A-Rod and baseball, give it up.

Miss Market will make a repeat performance soon.