AN A-BOMB......FOR A-ROD

As much as I wanted to roll my eyes at some of the things he said.

As much as I couldn't take my eyes off the dreamy, pink shade of lipstick chosen for the occasion to make him appear softer, more vulnerable.

I cannot deny the one message that A-Rod delivered with more power than a five hundred foot home run.

The "loose culture" in baseball that made it easier for him to drift to performance enhancing substances. Loosey-goosey I think he added later for emphasis.

I don't feel too sorry for the way he was "outed". The most powerful and successful union in the country finally fell on its hubris and let down its members. It is the MLBPA that is responsible for A-Rod's name leaking out and it will be their fault if all 104 names are released.

And I agree (strangely) with Curt Schilling's comments, that all 104 names now should be released. One thing I can virtually guarantee is if/when those names are released, there will be more Red Sox players named than there were on the Mitchell Report, which will allow people to see that exercise for the dog and pony show it was.

Let's see $20 million dollars on the Mitchell Report, $55 million and counting to put Barry Bonds head on a stick. I don't know what the Clemens tab is going to come to. And for what? Finality? Think again. I know these figures are chump change for the government and MLB to waste, but still quite a tab.

This 2003 list needs to be made public for a couple of reasons. All other players remain under a cloud of suspicion without its release. I don't buy the argument made by Yankees announcer Michael Kay on ESPN's "The Sports Reporters" that players "right to privacy" will be violated. He was arguing that A-Rods "rights" were somehow violated simply by the release and reporting before Alex stepped forward and confirmed the reporting.

This is a labor-management, collective bargaining breach but the players beef now rests solely with their own union. The union screwed up initially by having names attached (however loosely) to the "survey-only" samples. If it's just for informational purposes, there didn't seem to be a need to attach names to the list. But the union compounded the error by not securing the samples and lists and destroying them as it appears was their right under the agreement. THE UNION SCREWED UP.

Then we can get closer to the "Giambi solution" that I've been looking for. Remember, we got distracted by the media characterization of Giambi's "apology as non-apology" when he hit the nail on the head.

EVERYONE, PLAYERS, THE UNION and OWNERS should apologize to the fans for what happened. For the culture, the climate, that built up which allowed players to have to choose between their jobs, their legacy, their long-term health.

Players willfully made bad, short-term choices to inflate their wallets, records and legacies.

Union leaders protected those bad choices instead of protecting the players.

Owners turned their heads and ignored the issue as it grew in front of their eyes. They chose short-term, growing revenues and profits over the long-term health of the game.

And the one gaping hole that I still see that has not been adequately addressed is the culpability of management and ownership in the development of the culture.

Players have been drawn and quartered publicly. There is testing and public scorn to face for future users.

The union has been properly emasculated and cut down to size.

However, ownership continues on their merry way virtually unscathed. No better example of that then the Tom Hicks quote whining about the only thing he didn't hear out of A-Rod that he thought he should have was an apology to the owner who signed him to the infamous $252 million dollar contract that put so much pressure on A-Rod.

Dude, STFU. Have you ever heard of the phrase "a fool and his money....."? Well you are a fool. And a fool who can now claim Canseco, Palmeiro, Pudge Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez, Kapler and A-Rod as alumni. If there is a team that is the "poster team" for the steroids issue, the Rangers would lead the list.

OK, we've identified the problem. Now for the solution.

To ensure everyone is on board to make sure there is not a return to the culture that allowed this issue to stain the sport, the next agreement between players and owners should include penalties as follows:

THE SLAVIK PLAN TO IMPROVE MLB DRUG PROGRAM:

$1,000,000 fine for each member of the 25-man roster who tests positive
$500,000 fine for each minor league players who tests positive

The money should go to either drug prevention education programs in the schools and youth programs or to grass roots level youth baseball programs to REVIVE BASEBALL EVERYWHERE in this country, not just in the inner city.

Now the teams will be engaged and motivated to make sure something like this never happens again. And maybe the fans will believe it.

Too many have pinned their hope on the conviction of Barry Bonds being the exclamation point that signals the end of the issue. If those folks don't know they are wrong now, then they never will be.

The A-Rod leak guarantees there has to be a change in the narrative. A change in the story presented by the media.

It's interesting to note that now that the Bonds case has transferred from the court of public opinion to a court of law, we see the "mountain of evidence" that was the book "Game of Shadows" is turning into a molehill for the prosecutors.

Another larger issue that has not received much play is this: if the names remain private, there remains a risk that a player who participated in this survey, retires and is elected to the Hall of Fame and later the list is revealed and that player is on it.

Then the Baseball Writers who vote are going to find themselves with quite the problem. There is now a huge and growing list of "Scarlet Letter" players who do not seem to have much chance of induction. That list includes Bonds, Clemens, McGuire, Sosa, Palmeiro and now A-Rod.

That is going to leave a huge hole in the history and story of the Hall of Fame, which is a museum not a Stairway to Heaven. I'm not sure what these guys are going to do if this list continues to grow.

My suggestion would that instead of leaving otherwise worthy players outside the Hall of Fame looking in, I am sure that the writers could open their ballots to include more players like Dale Murphy and Andre Dawson who have not come remotely close to being implicated but whose career statistics were not "artificially" inflated as others in the era might be.

I don't think including players of that caliber comes anywhere near making this Hall of Fame into the Hall of the mediocre.

I think it would be justified under the theory that this is the Golden era of baseball where more fans have been brought to the ballgame than at any time in history. It's the fans game and the the fans hall and they have voted with their wallets.

For the youth, I would say responsible parents can teach their kids about morality issues just fine, sometimes negative examples provide good teaching points as well.

This is a part of the history of baseball, just as segregation once was. We acknowledge it, learn from it and move on. We don't remove the pre-segregation era players from the post-segregation era players.

Finally, it would demonstrate that indeed we are a forgiving nation. If this Hall of Fame and this sport wants to cloak itself in sanctimonious terminology, then maybe they should demonstrate that they have a REAL understanding of the concept of FORGIVENESS.