First, Take A Look At Yourself(ie)

During Wednesday night's game between the Arizona Diamondbacks (eliminated from postseason contention on September 20) and the Colorado Rockies (eliminated from postseason contention back in Spring Training), broadcaster Steve Berthiaume and color commentator/former D'backs manager Bob Brenly spent a solid two minutes at the beginning of the bottom half of the fourth inning making snide comments about a group of young women taking selfies in the stands. David Peralta hit a leadoff single up the middle while this was happening, and the two men took all of two seconds to note this before returning to ridiculing the girls.

Fans of irony will appreciate the call by Berthiaume: "Peralta knocks it into center...David tonight, 2-for-2, leadoff single here in the fourth, and (as the camera once again leaves the field to focus on the unsuspecting group) nobody noticed!" Again, this call comes after a full minute and a half of him and his cohort focusing entirely on these women, making fun of them for missing the action. It was all they had been talking about since returning from the commercial break.



As SBNation.com's Tanya Bondurant and several others pointed out, baseball should embrace the chaos that comes with our heavy reliance on our devices. They have an entire freaking company, MLB Advanced Media, that works exclusively to increase the online presence of all 30 teams. This is usually accomplished by tweets, videos, GIFs et. al. posted by employees of each franchise, but is fueled in large part by the pictures and videos fans take at the game, both of the activity on the field and of themselves enjoying it. For a broadcaster to publicly condemn these women for using their phones to do EXACTLY what the game's higher ups want them to do is absurd.

Beyond that, why on earth would these two think that their comments wouldn't offend anyone watching? Any female at the game, watching it at home, or simply following along on At Bat would (and many did) take umbrage to Berthiaume and Brenly's barrage. The things they said were tasteless and wholly unprovoked past them simply seeing these women taking selfies. I refuse to believe that no male fans were doing the same, although I guarantee that had a group of guys been caught on their phones, the broadcasters wouldn't have made the same disparaging jokes. I personally detest the concept of the selfie, but the needless self-documenting of one's life is in no way exclusive to one sex.

Can't imagine why these girls would rather take pictures of themselves than watch Chad Bettis (who?) pitch to Jarrod Saltalamacchia (ugh). Courtesy MLB.com

Two points really stand out to me: First, deterring women from coming to a baseball game is as counterproductive as it gets. It's no secret that MLB's attendance numbers and TV ratings are eons behind those of the NFL, leading to the creation of many programs and events designed to widen the game's appeal. Moreover, the game has made efforts to diversify their ranks and hire well-qualified minorities and women, and added more muscle to their inclusion department, headed by former player Billy Bean, to make the game more LGBTQ-friendly. Baseball wants to get better and be more socially conscious. The problem is that so many people (rather, men) around the game have no frame of reference for it.

I don't need to remind you how players like Torii Hunter and Daniel Murphy reacted to Bean's efforts, but I will to illustrate my point: most baseball players, likely as a result of their fierce competitiveness, are stubborn to a fault. They're so resistant to change that they've caused baseball to get stuck in stasis when it comes to making the game appealing to people of all genders, races and sexual preferences. If you love baseball, that's all that should really matter in both the clubhouse and the stadium. This game is supposed to unify us as a country, the national pastime in perpetuity; it's not meant to divide us on arbitrary bullshit like taking a picture on your phone.

Second, it comes as no surprise that this was said by announcers employed by the Diamondbacks. Although general manager Kevin "Eye For An Eye" Towers and field manager Kirk "The Enforcer" Gibson have been gone for some time, their spiritual (and actual) replacements - Tony LaRussa and Dave Stewart - aren't exactly the paradigm of sensitivity. For years now, Arizona has employed men who publicly espouse the benefits of hitting another human being with a hard, tiny sphere coming in at roughly the same speed and force as a locomotive, justifying it by the flimsy excuse "You accidentally hit one of ours, we intentionally aim for your MVP's head". That their views on sexism and technology are outdated and ignorant is no great shock.

While it's nice to think that MLB might take notice and hold their emissaries more accountable for the things they say on live television as a result of Berthiaume and Brenly's comments, keep in mind that they swept the whole "players taking dangerous amounts of performance-enhancing drugs with reckless abandon" thing under the rug for the better part of two decades. While new commissioner Rob Manfred has made some great strides already, this gives him an opportunity to improve the social standing of the game, and cement his legacy, early on in his tenure.

Let Go And Let Gomez

The first thing I thought when I heard about Houston Astros outfielder Carlos Gomez telling various New York Yankees to shut up after reacting poorly to his own offensive miscue in a game his team won handily was “Somebody will take on the role of curmudgeon and talk about ‘playing the game the right way’.”

I hate being right all the time. After both benches cleared Tuesday night following Gomez’s outburst caused by a pop fly to center that he believed he could have hit better, Yankees manager Joe Girardi lambasted Gomez during a postgame interview, saying he thinks Carlos should learn to “play the game the 'right way'”.

You want to know the right way to play the game? With passion, drive, and most importantly, enthusiasm. These are adults playing a game ostensibly for children (this applies to athletes in every professional sport, mind you). If you take it too seriously, you begin to miss the point. It’s no wonder that the sport most resistant to cultural shifts continues to see players and managers fighting over the “right way” to play.

I'm guessing that these two aren't discussing the finer points of gun control.
Courtesy Andy Marlin, USA Today Sports

It’s beyond ludicrous that this is considered newsworthy. Furthermore, why is it always Carlos Gomez? This, the tiff in 2014 with Pirates hurler Gerrit Cole, an altercation at home plate with then-Braves catcher Brian McCann in 2013…he’s become a lightning rod simply for having a personality. Are you noticing the problem? Hint: it isn’t Gomez whose actions are unwarranted.

You’ve heard this before, but it bears repeating: Baseball must begin to embrace the fact that we live in the 21^st century. Decades of institutionalized secrecy and adherence to a code both written and not have led to a droning cacophony surrounding the baseball elite. They only hear each other’s voices, blocking out the cries of fans who aren’t offended by bat flips and other ornate celebrations. They can’t seem to concern themselves long enough with improving fan safety or keeping megalomaniacal umpires in check; no, the biggest problem is making sure nobody looks like they’re having fun while playing!

I’m tired of writing about this kind of thing. You’re tired of reading about this kind of thing. Hell, I’m sure Gomez and others of his ilk are tired of defending themselves over this kind of thing. Until there's a sea change in perception, though, we'll be plagued by stubborn ballplayers policing each other and ensuring somber compliance rules every day of the week that ends in Y. 

THIS IS INFURIATING AND HIGHLY DETRIMENTAL TO THE GAME'S REPUTATION
Courtesy Andy Marlin, USA Today Sports

Perhaps the most curious thing, at least to me, is why other players so readily chastise their peers for trying to infuse some flair into the game. I get out-of-touch owners and executives taking offense, because they come from a time when players were unflinchingly respectful of the governing rules and customs. To them, seeing a player with any sort of attitude is unforgivable.

Fellow players should seemingly be more understanding, though, and take a lighter stance on the matter. After all, you never know when you could be chewing out a future teammate. Plus, if you had to stand up for your right to show your emotions, wouldn't you want supporters that understand your plight better than anyone else? What do you gain by needlessly creating tension between yourself and a coworker? Doesn't that just make everybody's jobs more unpleasant? 

Maybe I'm missing the point, but it seems pointless to keep fighting this battle. Baseball has weathered multiple steroid scandals, a World Series-cancelling strike and accusations of racial/gender inequality in my lifetime. There are bigger problems to attend to than a player having actual feelings.

Tigers Release Dombrowski, Have Given Up On Winning

All good things must come to an end. It stands to reason that the same is true for dominant baseball teams.

Although they’ve won the AL Central title 4 years in a row, the Detroit Tigers’ postseason hopes are all but dissipated after the team shipped incumbent free agents David Price and Yoenis Cespedes out of town.

The return for both players was impressive enough - a package headlined by Daniel Norris from the Toronto Blue Jays for Price and top prospect Michael Fulmer from the New York Mets for Cespedes. However, it sent out a clear signal: the Tigers are shooting for the future at the expense of the present.

The second shot across the bow came yesterday, when owner Mike Ilitch announced that he had released GM Dave Dombrowski from the remainder of his contract which expired at the end of this season. Assistant GM Al Avila (father of Tigers catcher Alex) will assume the position for the interim.

Courtesy Associated Press

It isn’t very surprising that Dombrowski was let go. The Tigers are in dire straits this year, as their bullpen has recorded a cumulative -0.2 WAR (29^th in baseball), their third base and DH situations are similarly untenable at -0.8 and -0.9 WAR (29^th and last in the AL respectively), and Justin Verlander has completed the devolution from dominant ace to dumpster fire.

Admittedly, if I knew the gorgeous Kate Upton was waiting for me at home, I’d probably give up a bunch of homers and get pulled early in most of my starts as well. I'd start intentionally hitting every batter just to get ejected before the end of the first inning.

What does come as a shock isn’t the timing, but rather that it happened at all. Dombrowski comes off this 14-year stint with a sterling reputation, taking the Tigers from utter mediocrity (remember that 119-loss team in 2003? Ramon Santiago is spinning in his grave) to World Series favorites. Even though they will likely miss the playoffs this season, his track record is proven.

He’s the man responsible for acquiring future Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera back in 2007, signing Cabrera to a deal that ensures he’ll be repping the Olde English D until the Sun burns out, trading for Max Scherzer and Doug Fister just before the string of consecutive division titles, and even building for a future he won’t be part of by sending Price, Cespedes and Joakim Soria (to the Pirates for shortstop prospect/part-time session saxophonist for smooth jazz records JaCoby Jones) for those sweet, sweet prospects.

Courtesy Carlos Osoria, Associated Press

Not many people would have been able to trade the massive contract of the equally gigantic Prince Fielder after his down year in 2013. Not only did Dombrowski manage to deal Fielder, he got Ian Kinsler back in the deal. Kinsler, by the by, has been an integral part of the team’s offense AND defense since coming over, while Fielder is bouncing back from a lost 2014.

This move is obviously more reactive than proactive, symbolic of the team's poor performance rather than a result of it. Dombrowski can only acquire the players; field manager Brad Ausmus and the players themselves are responsible for drawing on their talents to win baseball games. There’s always got to be a sacrificial lamb, though. In this case, Dombrowski is the goat.

Don’t cry for Dombrowski. He’s a smart man and a brilliant baseball mind. He was also at the helm of the Marlins when they won their first World Series back in 1997. If Davey boy can survive toiling under both Ilitch AND notorious scumbag Jeffrey Loria, he can do just about anything. He will find work again, and he will likely find it soon. There are already whispers of him joining the Red Sox, Angels and/or Blue Jays.

As for the Tigers...yeesh. Does anybody have Dmitri Young's phone number??

Losing The Good Phight.

The Philadelphia Phillies are one of baseball's most frustrating franchises as of late. Since a run of dominance that saw them make the postseason for 5 straight seasons (2007-11), including a World Series title and two straight WS appearances, the Phils have been mismanaged at every single level. They don't perform well on the field, they don't draft well, and they don't make smart trades or free agent signings. A rotten fish stinks from the head, but it appears the dorsal fin gets cut first: Ryne Sandberg, the Hall of Fame second baseman who has managed the Phillies since Charlie Manuel stepped down halfway through 2013, resigned this morning. Sandberg compiled a 119-159 record (.428 winning percentage) during his time at the helm, although the bulk of the blame for the dismal state of things in Philadelphia should be placed on GM Ruben Amaro Jr.

Courtesy Bill Streicher, USA Today Sports

It's not surprising to see Sandberg resign while Amaro Jr. remains in power. The field manager is often the first person to take on the role of sacrificial lamb when a team is going badly, while the general manager gets more rope as the architect of the roster. While this makes absolutely no sense, it's simply the way of the baseball world. But how much can Sandberg or anybody do with a lineup that still bats Ryan Howard fourth? What do you do with a rotation that hosts Cole Hamels and four belly-itchers? Seriously, you could replace the entire Phillies outfield with mannequins wearing gloves and nobody would notice a difference. They're even trying their level best to ship their closer (the much-maligned Jonathan Papelbon) out of town when he's one of the few pitchers on the roster with an ERA below 4. Their farm system, outside of Aaron Nola and J.P. Crawford, is scorched earth. This is a team without direction or reinforcements. There is little to look forward to in the Phillies' future.

None of this, mind you, is Sandberg's fault. He is simply an extension of the front office, just like every other manager in the game. He's handed 25 players at the beginning of the year and told to draw every ounce of talent out of them. That much is under his control: the manager is really supposed to balance personalities, to make sure the clubhouse stays loose. Chemistry between teammates has become a vital part of successful franchises, and successful managers should perpetuate a mentality that every player is important, respected and treated fairly. In this regard, Sandberg's failures are myriad and troubling: his clashes last season with longtime Philadelphia shortstop Jimmy Rollins (now of the Los Angeles Dodgers) brought to light the tension between Sandberg and his players; his decision to have outfielder Jeff Francoeur throw 45 pitches in a blowout loss to the Orioles last week drew harsh criticisms from second baseman Chase Utley, among others; his tendency to leave pitchers in too long has been an overall point of contention. It's upsetting when a manager calls out his own players, something Sandberg did with extreme prejudice during his time in Philadelphia. Simply put, he was thrown into a bad situation, and all he did was make things worse.

That being said, Amaro Jr. is still the biggest detriment to the Phillies. His trade demands for Hamels and Cliff Lee over the past few years have been incorrigible. His comments about the discrepancy between Rollins and team legend Mike Schmidt's batting averages when the former tied the latter for the franchise's all-time hit record were dumbfounding. It's no secret that the Phillies are one of the least analytically-inclined teams in the game, but if your GM doesn't understand the correlation between hits and at-bats, he isn't even fit to watch a major league team, much less run one. Amaro Jr. is in the last year of his contract, and with the imminent regime change (rumors have been flying that Andy MacPhail will be replacing Pat Gillick as team president soon), it seems very likely that Ruben will be jobless come 2016. I'm not saying that this will immediately improve the sorry state of the team, but it would be the definition of "addition by subtraction".

Buy Me Some Peanuts And Computer Hacks.

I have to say, for as well acquainted as I am with baseball history, I don't think anything quite like this has happened before: the St. Louis Cardinals, or at least certain employees within the organization, are currently under investigation by the FBI for last year's hacking of the Houston Astros' database. The database, named Ground Control, was compromised last summer when trade discussions, scouting reports and other internal communications were released on the Internet, many of which described GM Jeff Luhnow's (who had worked in a similar capacity with the Cards before his tenure in Houston) machinations during his massive rebuild of the team.

While little has been confirmed in terms of the main suspect(s), it's been speculated that the culprit(s) carried out the hack to get back at Luhnow. This would make a little more sense if the Astros were still in the same division as the Cardinals, but they jumped from the NL Central to the AL West almost a full calendar year before Luhnow joined the team. There's further speculation that the hack, regardless of who carried it out, was also in retaliation for Luhnow supposedly taking "proprietary information" with him from St. Louis. Luhnow, for his part, has yet to comment on the investigation.

Courtesy Sports Talk Florida

Whatever the motivation, this is a huge blemish on an otherwise immaculate franchise. The Cardinals, both on and off the field, have been the game's most respected team over the past decade: they won 2 World Series in that span, played for the pennant 6 times (including the last 4 seasons), and did so both with and without the legendary Albert Pujols. They draft well, develop those draftees efficiently, and turn them into major league All-Stars and MVP candidates. So why undertake such a destructive action against another team? Why kick the Astros when they're down, as they were at the time of the leak? This goes beyond disgruntled employees or basic pettiness; this is a clear, organizational act of aggression. It's a truly ugly incident, one that will undoubtedly tarnish the reputation of everyone involved.

Dave Cameron pointed out on Twitter the shift in perception of the Astros, especially in light of this investigation:

A year ago, Astros were terrible team, botched draft, didn’t protect their servers. Now? Good team, right about Aiken, robbery victims.

— David Cameron (@DCameronFG) June 16, 2015

If those who perpetuated the hack were trying to destroy Luhnow, it appears that they've done quite the opposite. Like Cameron said, the Astros are actually contending ahead of schedule, and Luhnow's much-ballyhooed process seems to finally be paying dividends. In other words, he's starting to deliver on his promise, turning the team in Houston into a reasonable facsimile of the one he constructed in St. Louis.

It's likely that we won't get many details on the identities of the hackers anytime soon, if ever. Major League Baseball can always choose to handle the matter clandestinely once the federal investigation concludes, although if previous scandals are any indication, we'll know the names soon enough. If it turns out that current GM John Mozeliak, owner Bill DeWitt Jr. or any other executive had knowledge of the hack or, worse, approved the actions of those who did the deed, heads are sure to roll with a rapidity we haven't seen since Rickey on the basepaths. Either way, this is corporate espionage of a caliber we've never seen in the game, and baseball must make an example out of the person(s) responsible.

Let Them Play, Straight Or Gay.

Tradition is vitally important to everyone. Regardless of where your spiritual beliefs lie, you undoubtedly hold some activities or customs sacred. Plenty of cultures are set in their ways, with most adherents raised to perpetuate those conventions forever. It's difficult to think of another institution, though, that holds on so dearly to its past, or views it with such reverence, as Major League Baseball. No other sport has been so resistant to change, be it technological (instant replay, social media presence, etc.) or cultural (diversification has long been a prominent issue). While holding fast to outdated concepts can be reassuring or comfortable, change is as crucial to growth as tradition.

Therein lies baseball's biggest problem: their complete and utter aversion to change. Both the NFL and NBA have embraced the cocky swagger of their biggest stars; in fact, they've shrewdly marketed those athletes to great effect. Whether or not you like them, it's impossible to be a sports fan and remain unaware of every move LeBron James, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning make. They are eminently in the face of every sports fan on earth, something that can't be said about any baseball player outside of Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez (for completely different reasons). You can throw Mike Trout, Andrew McCutchen and Clayton Kershaw in that category, but even those three aren't instantly recognizable to everyone. Although the sport is more profitable than ever before, it still struggles to keep pace with those other leagues in terms of popularity. It seems silly to even have this discussion, because the solution is so glaringly obvious: give baseball some attitude. Becoming more "urban", to turn a phrase, is not a bad thing. Racial and ethnic diversity has only strengthened the appeal of basketball and football, and turned them into athletic monoliths. Baseball players want the freedom to express themselves to the same extent. There's no harm in letting them do so.

Understandably, the same sport that blackballed Jim Bouton hasn't come very far in the intervening decades since Ball Four pulled back the curtain for baseball fans. The culture surrounding the game is still mired in relative secrecy, players forced to tone down their personality for the sake of playing the game "the right way". This is seemingly nothing more than pandering to older fans, those who still remember the supposed good old days when ballplayers were viewed as demigods, instead of the sleazy, sexist jerks they are in actuality. I'm not saying players today are completely unscrupulous (as their past counterparts truly were), because many of them are clean-cut, respectable men. Still, even current players try to curb the enthusiasm of their peers: how many times has Carlos Gomez been beaned for supposedly admiring a long home run?

Beyond allowing players to express themselves with on-field celebrations, an even more sensitive scenario has arisen. Billy Bean (the former player and openly gay man, not the current Athletics GM/human trafficker) was hired by Major League Baseball last July as an "ambassador for inclusion", in the hopes of making the sport more friendly and appealing to LGBTQ people. To his credit, one of his first acts was going around to all 30 clubhouses during Spring Training, speaking on the merits of acceptance and compassion to 750 men who seemingly know nothing about either. For all the good Bean has done and continues to do, players like Torii Hunter (a staunchly religious player who has expressed his homophobia on multiple occasions) and Daniel Murphy (who explicitly said he "disagree[s] with the lifestyle" after Bean spoke to his Mets comrades) appear to have missed the point, undercutting his hard work. Keep in mind, this is the sport that didn't allow African Americans to play with white athletes for 70-something years. Members of the LGBTQ community, it stands to reason, face an even steeper uphill battle. Who will be the gender-fluid Jackie Robinson? Will there ever be a gay Larry Doby? Which person will be the first to break through, and as importantly, which executive for which team will be the one to take the plunge? Branch Rickey is almost as celebrated as the man who took a chance on Robinson, and their story of triumph against racial prejudice is well-known. But in this era, when sexual assault and harassment has turned into a monstrously prevalent issue, baseball seems to be dragging its feet. Admittedly, it's the NFL that has been rocked by abuse scandals more recently, but that only gives MLB every reason to jump out in front and show the world that it's the socially progressive association it's been making itself out to be for years.

That brings up another point: the cognitive dissonance on display in baseball is almost laughable. The higher-ups tout their game as the sport of inclusion, while simultaneously doing everything they can to dispel that notion. Unless I've missed something, and inclusion now means "accepting of everybody as long as they're male, Christian and straight". As little as they've done to make the product on the field more diverse, even less has happened in front offices. Ignoring the fact that only two managers (Lloyd McClendon and Fredi Gonzalez of the Mariners and Braves, respectively) are not white males, most teams have few to no minority or female executives, and even MLB's central office has seen a precipitous drop recently in the same areas. For baseball to truly be inclusive, they need to include everybody. Again, this seems simple enough to an ignorant blogger, so it would stand to reason that people far smarter than me feel the same way. That only makes the relative lack of diversity more confounding.

In all fairness, The Institute of Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) points out that baseball does a fairly good job of hiring women and minorities. Even considering that, though, the sport's employment figures for those groups fall well short of the number of white males. If baseball is truly going to be the sport that most supports racial and gender equality, they've still got a ways to go. People like Bean have voices that need to be heard, and it's high time we as sports fans listen.

Thoughts On Baseball's Greatest Villain, or Another Hastily Written A-Rod Think Piece.

He's as polarizing a ballplayer as Pete Rose, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, firmly entrenched in the upper echelon of baseball's most horrendous offenders while somehow maintaining a vocal (if not numerically strong) support base. He's vain to a fault, seemingly unconcerned with the increasingly negative way he's viewed in the public eye. He's a cheater, using banned substances well after they were outlawed. He's a sideshow, always bringing a maelstrom of articles and blog posts (like the one you're reading now) with every move he makes. We have a certain expectation by now, and he never fails to meet it, rueful though he/we may be about it. In spite of all of this, he's one of the greatest players in the game's history by the numbers, though certainly not by reputation. You can't predict baseball, but you can predict Alex Rodriguez.

I can't tell if he's looking at a fly ball or the uphill PR battle he knows he can't win.

You've heard this story before. You've heard it more times than you can even remember, and you've damn sure heard it more times than you ever wanted. Sadly, the debate raging over Rodriguez's place among the all-time greats is one that promises to continue to burn. With his pinch-hit homer last night against the Red Sox, he finally tied Willie Mays for 4th place all-time on the home run list at 660. This should have been cause for wild celebrations across the baseball world. There should have been a sudden boom of babies named A-Rod. Men were supposed to cheer until hoarse, women were supposed to cry until dehydrated, and children were supposed to be in rapt awe of their hero, their champion, their favorite baseball player. So where is the fawning, the adoration, the sheer excitement? Where are the gushing tributes on ESPN and MLB/YES Networks? Do I really have to tell you why this isn't the seminal occasion it would be had he done all of this legitimately, the proverbial "right way"?

No, the most intriguing part of A-Rod's ascent is whether or not the Yankees will pay out the $6 million he's due as per that ridiculous contract. They'll claim he violated the terms of the deal by way of his steroid usage, and that argument may carry more weight in front of an arbitration panel than you may think. Yes, the team is contractually obligated. Sure, they knew what they were getting themselves into when they offered that massively misguided pact to a player coming off another MVP-winning season back in 2007. Of course, nobody could have foretold Rodriguez's rapid fall from grace (unless, you know, you realized that giving a 32 year old athlete a 10-year deal would MAYBE not play out so well in its entirety). But does cheating your way to the top justify the benefits that come with such a position? As we know quite well by this point, most people would say it does not.

This could have been another reverential moment in the history of a franchise chock full of them, but it will now serve as an embarrassing display of excess, the world's richest sports team and the world's richest baseball player arguing over what amounts to a rounding error for both. It will stand as the moment that the problems caused by the Steroid Era finally came to a head, with baseball's last prominent juicer trying to clear his name and make his money while everything burns around him. It seems like there's no upper limit to Rodriguez's ability to infuriate everyone who knows his crimes, his self-serving ways perpetuating themselves to no end. While he's assumed the humble, team-player persona in 2015, that doesn't erase the grandiose arrogance and flagrant disregarding of the game's written and unwritten rules he demonstrated in the 15 years (and possibly longer) prior to now. This is a tremendous historical event, and nobody cares purely because of who's involved.

Even though the person involved is apparently some kind of telekinetic wizard? That has to count for something...

It's easy to say that Rodriguez should be ashamed of himself, that he shouldn't accept the money even if the Steinbrenners simultaneously slip into senility and offer it up willingly. In all fairness, there are some who wonder if he truly deserves to keep playing the bad guy, a role he seemed ill-suited for even 5 years ago. "How long can this unrelenting flagellation go on?", you may ask. Well, Rose is still waiting for his reinstatement, 26 years after being banned. Shoeless Joe Jackson, who by all accounts didn't earnestly participate in the Black Sox Scandal in 1919, still remains outside of baseball's good standing nearly a century later. We as baseball fans may forgive to an extent, but we don't forget. Bonds and Clemens won't make it into the Hall of Fame in their lifetimes, if at all, and we really only have speculation and visual "proof" that they took steroids. We have an admission AND several failed tests for A-Rod. His money is in the bank, his numbers eternally carved into the all-time lists. But make no mistake, Alex Rodriguez will never escape the denigration of public opinion. As he continues to inch up those lists (just 54 more until he ties Babe Ruth!), it will only intensify, the jeering of those who once clamored for his mammoth blasts rising towards a crescendo that will be sustained for decades. And he has nobody to blame but the doe-eyed monster staring back at him in the mirror.

So give him the money. Give him what he's owed, because he IS due at least that much. Buster Olney of ESPN put it best when he said this, shortly after Rodriguez's suspension for his involvement in the Biogenesis mess was announced in July 2013:

A-Rod is Charles Foster Kane of Citizen Kane as he nears the end of his baseball life: In his castle, surrounded by riches, without allies.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) July 25, 2013

Really, what harm is there in paying the man? What he gains in monetary value, he's lost in fan perception, a blow much more damaging than anything financial. Alex Rodriguez had a chance to be baseball's golden god, the man deserving of the "greatest of all time" title. Now, he's little more than a punchline. A well-compensated punchline, at least.