Has A-Rod found the fountain of youth or is he just using a better steroid masking agent?

Everybody’s thinking it. While baseball observers marvel at the production of Alex Rodriguez at age forty, after being suspended for one year, deep down inside they have to be wondering if A-Rod is succeeding honestly or if he is doing what he allegedly has been doing his entire career—juicing.

In the spring it appeared as if A-Rod’s career was winding down. He was injury prone and a middling hitter for three years and then came the suspension that caused him to miss the 2014 season. Nobody could have anticipated that a 40 year old man with two bad hips who had missed an entire season and who had been a below average major league player for the three years previous would become a crucial ingredient to the Yankees 2015 success.

Surprising, shocking, stunning; a revelation, rejuvenation, reclamation, baseball’s easy choice for the comeback player of the year—these were some of the descriptions as A-Rod began hitting in April and continued to amaze though the summer months. He now hits third in the line-up and has proven to be a valuable and important player to the Yankees rise to the top of the division.

Yes, this is still the A-Rod the Yankees wanted off their roster—and more importantly off their payroll. The Yankees re-signed A-Rod after the 2007 season to a ten year $275 million contract. The Yankees got three good years out of him before injuries and poor play caused the team to re-think their options. When the drug issues were made public the Yankees tried to have A-Rod kicked off the team, and tried to have his contract nullified.

This year, forced to take back the player they hoped would quit the game, the Yankees wanted to make it as difficult as possible for A-Rod. Their plan was to send him on far more spring training bus trips than usual for veteran players hoping they could frustrate A-Rod to the point of making him quit, but he persevered. And then, when the regular season started, he succeeded.

It seems suspicious to me—the way it was suspicious to watch Barry Bonds crush balls and Roger Clemens throwing high nineties well into their forties. How is it possible for a player whose career was pretty much done—kept alive only by the length of the contract and the money owed—to suddenly bounce back at age 40 and be one of the better players in the game?

How?

There are many knowledgeable people in baseball who believe A-Rod has been juicing since he turned pro—in 1994 when at age 18 he joined the Seattle team that drafted him first overall in the 1993 June draft. A-Rod’s only failed drug test came in 2003; Rodriguez tested positive for testosterone and Primobolan during his 2003 American League MVP season. But that was when MLB had no penalties set up for failed drug tests.

“We cannot penalize players for a 2003 positive test,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said. There were, in total, 104 positive drug tests in 2003 which pushed forward an agreement between baseball and the players union that took effect in 2004.

For years A-Rod denied using steroids but then in 2009, after a report publicized that failed 2003 test, A-Rod admitted that he had been using since joining the Texas Rangers in 2001.
“I did take a banned substance, and for that I’m very sorry,” said A-Rod. “I’m deeply regretful. I’m sorry for that time. I just signed this enormous contract; I got unbelievable negative press, for lack of a better term. We were all bad at the time. I felt like I needed something, a push, without over-investigating what I was taking, to get me to the next level.”

Rodriguez was now on the league’s radar for steroid abuse. A-Rod denied any usage after 2003.

However, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency’s “report of investigation,” Rodriguez used substances prohibited by Major League Baseball from late 2010 to October 2012.

He did not fail another test after 2003 but that is due to the masking agents rather than non-use. During the investigation that led to the year’s suspension he publicly denied any involvement with steroids but in conference with DEA agents he admitted usage. He also admitted that he did not fail any tests because he was given “tips on how to beat MLB’s drug testing.”

A-Rod is familiar with the many ways to beat the drug testing system.

Manfred believes his system is strong but did caution that there could be flaws. “I think our testing is state of the art. It’s as good as it can be,” Manfred said. “But I think you need to stay really vigilant on both fronts because this is a science—kind of a black science, but a science nonetheless—and it evolves. We have to make sure that we’re evolving with it.”

It is common knowledge in the scientific community that drug testing in far behind drug using; that it is extremely difficult to catch a cheater, and that the cheater would have be highly irresponsible and reckless to get caught. Since 2003 A-Rod has not been reckless; except that he was the big fish caught inside a web of conspiracy involving the Biogenesis clinic in Florida. Others involved sold him out.

A-Rod is being tested regularly coming off his suspension. “Let me be clear about this,” said Manfred, “he’ll be tested exactly like every other player who has violated the program. The program requires more frequent testing for players who are coming back after a suspension.”

According to the Joint Drug Agreement (JDA), which was adopted by Major League Baseball and the players’ association in December 2011, any player who has been disciplined under the JDA is subject to six unannounced urine tests and three unannounced blood tests for the 12-month period following the violation, as well as the same number of tests for every subsequent year the player appears on a team’s 40-man roster.

A-Rod’s name and legacy were ruined. While the Hall of Fame seems unreachable the only way he could scrub his name somewhat clean was to return to the game and produce as a quality major league player. If, after three sub-par years and a one year suspension, he came back and produced at the same mediocre level then his reputation would be tarnished forever. Evidence would show that he could not perform without the juice. This was a vitally important year for A-Rod and his legacy in the game.

So the question is—would A-Rod risk being a failure by playing clean or, having been distrustful of his abilities without performance enhancing drugs before, would he have succumbed to the lure? It would seem that A-Rod is addicted to PED’s and believes he needs the extra boost to survive and succeed. Is that what’s happening this year?

To think that A-Rod is playing completely clean strikes me as naïve. The chances of being caught are slim and the need for success too important for A-Rod to risk failure.

After all, A-Rod has never given us any reason to believe him before—why would we now.

Thoughts…

…The Toronto Blue Jays are on a roll. It is unbelievable that not only did the Jays sweep the Yankees in a three game series in New York but they won with pitching. The Jays allowed one run in three games, one lousy replay assisted run in 28 innings. The Jays looked unbeatable while the Yankees looked like a good team being beaten by a great team. The new additions have meshed seamlessly into the Jays club chemistry, the defence is solid and the pitchers seem to be following David Price’s lead and dominating hitters. Can they sustain this run? Going 11-1 has got them into the playoff picture and knocking on the door for the AL East lead, but if they go through a two week slump it may knock them out of the playoff picture. The only way that seems possible is if the club suffers a spate of injuries to key players.

…Detroit Tigers manager Brad Ausmus termed the very public blow-up in the team’s dugout as commonplace. Last Friday night, during a 7-2 loss at home to the Boston Red Sox Tigers shortstop Jose Iglesias got into a shouting match in the dugout with catcher James McCann, which escalated into a physical confrontation. The incident was on full view of the cameras. Ausmus downplayed the incident calling it a disagreement among brothers and he said issues like that occur often among team-mates who spend seven months together—Ausmus said that most times confrontations occur out of public view. This one did not, and for good reason. Iglesias appeared to be playing in a sulk and didn’t try hard on three different plays in the top half of the inning. Iglesias’ indifferent play aggravated McCann who voiced his displeasure when the team returned to the dugout. It seemed apparent, from the actions of other Tigers, that this was not the first time Iglesias had created an issue. Watching from a distance new Blue Jays and former Tiger David Price must have been thankful for the trade.