Doc: Capitalism, MLB don't lack for shame
Paul Daugherty, pdaugherty@enquirer.com 11:33 a.m. EDT May 9, 2015

Hit King and former Reds great Pete Rose tips his hat to the crowd as he joins his teammates, the Great Eight, at Great American Ball Park for Joe Morgan Weekend in 2013.
(Photo: Enquirer file)

Nobody brought more joy to a ballpark than Rose. Nobody has brought

Alex Rodriguez hit his 661st home run Thursday night at Yankee Stadium and nobody cared.

Well, not exactly nobody. The Yankees fans cared, even if the attendance Thursday (39.816) was slightly short of the 40,248 the team has averaged this year. Rodriguez cared, reluctantly. He had to be forced from the dugout to acknowledge the appreciation.

"I was a little embarrassed,'' he said. "It was a little awkward. I didn't want the game to stop.'' It was a small show of humility, from a man not known for same. Or it could have been an act. With A-Rod, you never know.

The Yankees cared. Rodriguez has a $6 million bonus in his overstuffed contract, payable when he tied Willie Mays' mark of 660 homers, which Rodriguez achieved last week in Boston. The Yankees don't want to pay the $6 million.

The team argues that Rodriguez's role in the Biogenesis scandal has crippled its ability to market A-Rod, and thus realize a return on its $275 million, 10-year investment. It all could end up in court.

Oh, joy.

After the game, someone asked A-Rod's teammate, Brett Gardner, if he felt the in-game celebration had been less than raucous. "I don't know what to compare it to,'' Gardner said.

This is what PEDs have done to baseball: They've ripped the joy from the big moments.

Rodriguez now has more home runs than all but three players in history: Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714). The marrow of A-Rod's achievement should taste like caviar. Instead, it's a pile of day-old bananas, bruised and lumpy and selling for 29 cents a pound.

(By the way: Did you know how many homers Bonds had? Or did you have to look it up? I did. Baseball's most hallowed record, rendered unremarkable.)

Compare the national yawn in the wake of Rodriguez's achievement to the national fascination with Mac and Sammy in 1998, to see how the national passion has ebbed.

The baseball commissioner, Rob Manfred, has said that pharmaceutically enhanced players are less guilty of harming the game than players who gamble on it. That is, the likes of Bonds, Rodriguez, Mark McGwire etc. rank lower on the miscreant ladder than Publicly Exiled Rose.

Maybe so. But nobody brought more joy to a ballpark than Rose. Nobody has brought more cynicism than Rodriguez.

Baseball is a game of numbers, sublime and arcane. Aaron's homers, Rose's hits. BABIP and WHIP. It's a WAR out there. Understanding baseball's numbers has become a cottage industry and a scholarly pursuit. Teams have caught on. There are as many GMs now with MBAs as with eyes creased by the sunshine of afternoon games in places like Macon, Ga., and Billings, Montana.

Metrics are not a fad or a hobby. They are essential to success and failure.

The users have corrupted the numbers. That is why A-Rod's fanfare Thursday could have been played on a kazoo. When some of the greatest players in history are pariahs because of what they put in their bodies, allegedly or absolutely, you have a problem.

And sorry, Mr. Commissioner, but it's a bigger problem than a guy who has been persona not grata since August of 1989.

The drug excesses have been curbed. At least we think so. Baseball's testing is rigorous. Judging solely by physiques, it seems to be working. Hitters aren't walking around now looking like the Michelin Man. The Fountains of Youth afforded Bonds and Roger Clemens have been shut off at the spigot. But what's done is done.

Alex Rodriguez is far more a symbol of Baseball's dark side than Pete Rose. To insist that gambling remains the game's biggest threat and sin is to ignore that times have changed since Bart Giamatti sent Rose to Elba.

Baseball has aligned itself with a fantasy baseball business called Draft Kings, "the free official Fantasy Game of MLB.com''. Across the home page of the company's website is its clear intent:

"Daily Fantasy Sports For Cash''

Did you know that the Cooperstown Collection, an MLB-approved apparel maker, has a replica Rose jersey for sale? From their website:

"Want to honor a great of the game? Put on a Throwback MLB Jersey designed to look exactly like the ones the Hall of Famer's (sic) wore.''

Capitalism and Baseball don't lack for shame.

Meantime, Manfred pores diligently over piles of ancient documents regarding Rose. I applaud him for that. He seems genuinely interested in giving Rose a fair hearing. He's also a Yankees fan of long standing, and the man who crafted the deal that got A-Rod a 162-game suspension.

Rodriguez is back in the game, though, making spectacular moments that are strangely sad. Rose remains at the game's the window, his nose pressed to the glass.

Fair?

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/c.../27038029/