UPDATE BELOW
Hey, baseball fans! Make sure you make it out to the next Miami Marlins home game for Souvenir Syringe Night!
There will be plenty of activities for the whole family, including the "A-Rod Biogenesis Photo Booth," where scientifically doctored images will automatically add three inches to your biceps, and possibly hat size, and enable you to club 500-foot home runs in the "BALCO Hall of Fame Batting Cage Simulator" right next door!
So here's the news: The Miami Marlins, scrambling to stay in the National League wild card race after losing outfielder Giancarlo Stanton for the season with a groin injury, are considering signing free agent Alex Rodriguez, the recently excommunicated fallen star from the New York Yankees. He would play first base and try to hit better than .200.
The Marlins. Of course the Marlins. This is the same organization that hired (artificial) home run king Barry Bonds as their hitting coach last December. So it stands to reason they would consider signing Rodriguez.
Barry Bonds coaching Alex Rodriguez. It's like Fantasy Sports Hell.
Awww, man.
We now resume with earlier blog...
Owner Jeffrey Loria never claimed to own a moral compass. Look out for future Marlins moves: pitching coach Roger Clemens, power clubbing coach Mark McGwire, speed coach Ben Johnson, indignant-denial-and-finger-pointing-coach Rafael Palmeiro and publicist Marion Jones.
Gonzalez's isn't a certainty. But there are multiple reports this move is being strongly considered and Jim Bowden, the former Washington and Cincinnati general manager said he expects it to happen. (Granted, Bowden doesn't always have a great batting average as an analyst and Tweeter.)
UPDATE: Here's a link to Bowden's interview on MLB Network Radio.
Bonds and Rodriguez are two of the greatest baseball players who ever lived. They would've been that even if their careers weren't enhanced by performance enhancing drugs. (Legal disclaimer: Bonds has never admitted using PEDs. Hahahaha. OK, seriously...)
I have a Hall of Fame vote. I've taken the position that without clear guidance on how to deal with players from the steroid/HGH/PED era, I'm probably not going to vote for someone who has had alleged ties to drugs until at least their final year of eligibility, allowing the most possible time for evidence to surface. Even then, my preference would be for a player to come clean publicly so as to add more clarity to steroid era.
You may disagree with that stance. But the vagueness of guidelines from the HOF and the Baseball Writers Association of America allows that latitude. (I'm also not sure how much longer I want to keep my vote, given the process has become a mess.)
Bonds is the all-time home run king with 762. But not really. The real king lives in Atlanta and he hit 755. Bless you, Hank.
Rodriguez, who has hit 696 homers, admitted (years later) that he used PEDs early in his career at Texas -- he claimed because of pressure to live up to a $252 million contract. More recently, he accepted a 162-game suspension (effectively the entire 2014 season) after being connected to the Biogenesis scandal in 2013.
Biogenesis was a "health clinic" in the Miami area that allegedly supplied Rodriguez with HGH. So if Rodriguez signs, this reaffirms you really can go home again. And Miami seems like the perfect place.
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