It's my job to be fair, so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt about the tipping allegations for the moment and let Major League Baseball sort that out. If you're an Orioles fan, you are under no such obligation, though I don't think you really need that last ethical straw to bellow at Rodriguez with all your might if he makes his 2009 regular-season debut at Oriole Park this weekend.
The guy sold his soul a long time ago for the chance to be the highest-paid player in the history of baseball. He has admitted to using illegal performance-enhancing drugs for several seasons to assure that he would be able to live up to that ridiculous contract.
He has become the symbol of all that's wrong with professional sports, and to think that he claimed to be a kid who idolized Cal Ripken Jr. and always wanted to be just like him.
Somewhere along the line, he decided that statistics and money were more important than character, or maybe we just gave him a little too much credit when he burst onto the scene in the mid-1990s as the young player with a chance to be the greatest of the greats. Maybe he was always a little deficient in the integrity department and that's why some people think it's important to trumpet his alleged steroid use in high school even though we already knew he was a steroid cheat.
Again, I don't know any of that for sure.
Again, not your problem.
It's not as if you need an excuse to boo the Yankees, who already represented a lot of what has gone haywire in pro sports. I'm just remembering the enthusiasm with which Orioles fans blasted Teixeira, whose only real sin was not wanting to accept less money to play for a losing team near his boyhood home. It'll be interesting to see whether the anti-A-Rod sentiment that bubbles up in the stands will match the provincial passion that created so much energy at Camden Yards during the first series of the regular season.
I'm also wondering, at a time when a lot of fans are experiencing some serious Orioles fatigue, whether there will be enough energy and anti-pinstripe sentiment in the stands for both A-Rod and Tex at what would figure to be a time of maximum anti-Yankee motivation.
Better get your rest.
Listen to Peter Schmuck every weeknight at six on WBAL (1090 AM) and check out his blog, The Schmuck Stops Here, at baltimoresun.com /schmuckblog.
