Alex Rodriguez Ruined Baseball's One Hope

Let me preface this post by saying that I'm a disenchanted baseball fan, the kind of fan that baseball once had and that baseball has been needing to come back to the game.

The discovery that Alex Rodriguez (pictured, left) took steroids from 2001 to 2003 will in all likelihood not hurt baseball's attendance this year. There are thousands of die-hard Philadelphia, Anaheim, Boston, and Chicago fans that could not care less that A-Rod is now A-Fraud. (Sorry, I like that one and couldn't resist.) 

What about those malcontented with the sport, though? This works on both sides of the spectrum. On one side, you have the people like me, who, perhaps thinking that the sport was cleaned up after the Mitchell Report, were gradually beginning to come back, and even watched the World Series last year. On the other side, you have the baseball purists, not necessarily fans of a given team, but fans of baseball. I'm talking about the old-timers. The game is as foreign to them as the substances entering the 104 players about to be named in the SI report. They don't want to see cheaters either. 

Baseball just lost both of these types of fans. Forgive all the people like me who have a problem with a sport whose top two home run hitters of all time (just going out on a wide, wide limb and assuming A-Rod becomes number one) have both been accused of becoming as good as they have become by cheating. Oh, and by the way, this is neither here nor there, but I also have a problem with a sport who doesn't accept their career hits leader into the Hall of Fame. 

Baseball just lost both of those types of fans because casual fans everywhere just lost hope in the fact that pure talent alone can get you anywhere in this sport. The next in line that could potentially become the home run king is Ryan Howard, who you can tell is clean just by looking at him. He's been hurt too often in his career, though. 

It's just sad because of what a positive step last season was. The Red Sox weren't back in the series. Instead, it was the worst franchise of the past ten years against the team whose franchise had lost more games than anyone had in any sport. It showed there was some parity in the baseball. Underdogs could rise up, something a lot of people did not think could happen. Also, once the season started, you barely heard anything about the Mitchell Report or steroids. 

I could be completely wrong, and everyone forgives A-Rod, gets tired of talking about steroids, and life goes on like nothing ever happened. I don't think I am, though. I think baseball just lost its one immediate chance to forget about Barry Bonds.