2009 June, 29th

Phil Butler

I was just reading an article where Reggie Jackson and Willie Mays were on the phone talking about Alex Rodriguez and his quest for the home run title. Rodriguez had just passed Reggie, who in talking with Mays on the phone at the time, interjected about steroid use, among other things. Interesting, yes, but sad too in that the terminology of baseball (or sports) has this term, steroids that is, infecting what was once a national pass time and a real field of dreams.

Baseball, and sports in general, has often been a reflecting pool for our lives in general. Society and the individual are sometimes balanced and weighed on the this athletic scale of drama and endeavor. I remember being a kid and simply hearing about people such as Mays, Aaron, Mantle, Koufax and many others, you see everyone did not have a TV back then. Yeah, I know, ancient civilizations, but maybe better ones. Rodriguez admittedly used steroids 2001-2003, putting him in relatively bad company for baseball purists. Passing Reggie Jackson the other day, and seeing Jackson’s classy reaction, sort of solidifies my opinion of the “old timers” when it comes to their attitude to what probably should be the end of “real” statistics in sport – namely drug induced excellence.

For their part, Mays and many other Hall of Fame players in professional sports have stood behind some steroid users saying something to the effect that if the drugs were available then, many would have experimented with them. This is probably true, given all we know of extreme competition, but the fact that these people performed without them, and achieved milestones which are only now being conquered, I think the point for a drug free Hall of Fame is well made.

I won’t go into a tirade over whether or not, what if, and way back when, but it is fairly obvious to me that Rodriguez and many others, are headed for a record book which will for all time be tainted. It just so happens that my nephew and Rodriguez were High School All-Americans on the same high school team at Westminster in Miami. Rodriguez back then, as now, was the most highly touted shortstop, although I do not remember him being a home run champion.

Rodriguez was and is, without a doubt, a fielder and batter of supreme capability, much like Mays himself. However, like so many things in our rather tangled up world now, one has to wonder if anything will ever be “for real” any more? When a lie, becomes truth, how can we account for anything? Rodriguez should ask baseball to strike those steroid years from his statistics, now that would be a class act! Then, and only then, after passing these greats for a second time, he would unmistakably be one of the true greats of sport – and darned well worth his millions.

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About the Author

Phil Butler is editor-in-chief of Everything PR and senior partner at Pamil Visions PR. He’s a widely cited authority on beta startups, search engines and public relations issues, and he has covered tech news since 2004. Phil wrote in the past for ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, Profy, SitePoint, Search Engine Journal, AltSearchEngines. Follow Phil on Twitter or send him an email at phil [at] pamil-visions [dot] com.

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