A-Rod, Bonds and Truth Squads

At some point in the life of our five children I came up with a wonderful idea: the Truth Squad. When something went wrong around the house, seemingly every day, none of our children would admit to the wrongdoing. Rather than yell and scream and threaten and listen to them blame each other, the truth squad was born. I had them line up and put their arms straight out from their sides and hold them there until one of them came clean with the truth. Simple and quite effective! Other parents have rolled in laughter when I shared the concept with them!!!

This latest round of outrage from the upcoming A-Rod book by Selena Roberts got me to thinking about truth squads and several other things. First off, in my mind A-Rod is now the poster child for the abolition of guaranteed contracts in professional sports. Of course, neither the Yankees nor the commissioner’s office will invoke any type of morals clause and void the contract, nor will they say anything about the situation because legally they cannot. Too bad. His story is just an extension of the Barry Bonds saga from the last few years. And neither one of them will EVER need to worry about making hotel reservations in Cooperstown, New York.

Aside from the personal harm these, and countless other, nitwits have done to their bodies, they have the accomplishment of teaching an entire generation of children that cheating is OK, and if you get caught just put up enough parameters around the incidents that you become a sympathetic figure. Bonds didn’t know what he was using. Right! I worry how much harm 1000 milliigram doses of ibuprofen will do to my kidneys, and I do not have a multimillion dollar career at stake. I’m sure that he had absolutely no knowledge as to the content of the “clear” and the “cream”. Sure! A-Rod only did illegal substances while with the Rangers. Right! A $252-million dollar contract and his follow-up deal in New York put no additional pressure on him to hit 40-plus home runs a year. And the entire book has not been released yet. Next week will be a fun one for A-Rod. Perhaps he can rehab in Siberia or Antarctica! Or with Osama bin Laden, wherever he is!!!

There are some lessons from my kids’ truth squads that also come into play here. First, the truth can save you a lot of trouble. Admitting that you have screwed up usually puts an end to the problem, and healing can begin. Had these morons admitted their substance abuse up front they might some day need reservations in Cooperstown. They may have also put aside some of the legal issues that are mounting daily. But coming clean may have implicated many other players. So what! Every major leaguer has been implicated by association, the juicers and the non-juicers. Do any of us trust any of them? I know that I don’t. And where is the leadership on this issue from the commissioner’s office? Sorry, I dared think of baseball’s commissioner and leadership in the same sentence. My bad. I lived a half hour from Miller Park on that evening when Bud just threw his hands up and declared the All-Star game a tie. I forgot.

The other point that several of our kids still do not understand is that lying just makes things worse. Cover-ups may have worked for the CIA of J. Edgar Hoover, but in the 21st Century everyone has information about someone else that they are dying to share or sell. Are there any secrets anymore? Not if you are pulling down millions of Benjamins a year!!! Knocking the rich and famous down is becoming the favorite American pastime, ironically enough supplanting baseball!!! How do these guys think they are going to get away with all of this? Maybe they don’t, or can’t, read? Or watch TV? Or talk to other people? Inconceivable!!!

Finally, to Mr. Selig: just give up the ghost. Come out and admit that you and your owner friends allowed all of this to happen on your watch, and that you screwed up! You went for the dollars and sold out every clean former and current major leaguer. You sold the record book and the history of the game for personal gain. Let’s just call the last 20 years “The Steroid Era,” a parallel of the “dead” ball era, and move forward. In fact, until we can reliably test for HGH, let’s just admit that we still have players who are injecting themselves with performance enhancing substances, and keep the “steroid” era active. The records from this era will be suspect whether we do this or not. Hall of Fame selection will be based solely on who dominated their eras, and comparisons to historical numbers will be totally meaningless. After all, wouldn’t we all rather remember the summer of McGuire and Sosa for the joy it was rather than as a sad reminder of what baseball’s leadership allowed to happen to “save” their game?

It’s either that, or every major league player can line up for a truth squad. I will run that. I have leadership experience in the truth squads of children.

Until Next Time!
Julius