I was cheering and throwing air punches in my living room when this happened:
Best part of this brawl: after getting plunked, A-Rod turned and told Varitek "Real cool, throwing at me on purpose" and Varitek replied with "Don't worry, we don't intentionally throw at .240 hitters" and then fed him a mouthful of Rawlings.
I was literally screaming at my TV when this happened (until the umps got together and correctly reversed the call):
I posted the video and not the picture, because in retrospect, it's kinda fascinating to watch A-Rod here. Between the fact that he would even try a bush league move like this; his behavior in the immediate aftermath (clapping his hands and acting pleased with himself as the ball is rolling away); and his reaction at second base and ensuing argument once the call is overturned....I mean, we should've known all we need to know about A-Rod's character right here, right? The parallels of his behavior during both this play and the drug scandal are almost eerie.
And I refused to watch World Series highlights when this was happening.
In a lot of ways, everything that is happening to A-Rod now is more than I ever dreamed of. To steal a line from Silky Johnston from the Playa Hatas Ball, "I hope all the bad things in life happen to you, and nobody else but you."
And yet, even I can't help but feel a little bit bad for A-Rod. Maybe there's a reason why all that's happening now is more than I ever dreamed of. Although part of me laughs at what a joke he has become, the other part of me is a little bummed. For one, it's becoming obvious that his narcissism has reached the point of delusion. I'm not sure he even thinks what he's doing is wrong anymore; moreover, he's starting to think of himself as the victim in all of this. Not to go all Psychology 101 on you here (I only got a B in that class because I got hammered playing flippy cup the night before the final and bombed it) but having delusions of persecution is one of the earlist signs of psychosis. It's almost sad to watch.
Secondly, and more selfishly, when I thought A-Rod was clean, as much as I hated him, I was still cheering for him to break Barry Bonds' home run record, so at least the most sacred record in all of sports wouldn't be held by a cheater.
So yeah, even after years of disliking A-Rod, I still didn't want his entire career to be destroyed. It seems like we're going a bit overboard here. It's like what Great Britain or one of the other Allied Forces in WWII must have felt like after we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima. I mean, yeah, Japan was kind of a dick, and they started it....but you didn't have to NUKE them. Fuck, man.
(Or, if you'd rather have a little bit lighter analogy, it's like Darth Vader at the end of Episode VI, when he looks over in surprise when the Emperor is electrocuting Luke. I mean, yeah, I knew we were trying to get Skywalker to join the Dark Side, and we were gonna fuck with him a bit, but I didn't know you were gonna brutally murder him right in front of me, bro.)
I do have one more selfish reason for disliking this possible year-and-a-half suspension: If it stands, the Yankees get out of his 34 million dollar salary next year, which allows them to get under the 189 million threshold, which means they can spend with impunity for a couple years again without worrying about paying the "repeat offender" tax. I guarantee you that behind the scenes, the Yankees have been doing everything they can to get this suspension to stick. They've been wanting out of this contract for at least a year now; they were probably disappointed that MLB didn't hand out the lifetime ban, as was rumored to be a possibility. The moral of the story, as it usually is, is that the Yankees are fucking evil.
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Side note: this was the 715th post in this blog's history. So if each post represented a home run, this blog just passed Babe Ruth on the all-time list. Ironic, since A-Rod, who was once a lock to pass the Babe, Hank Aaron, and Bonds to break the all-time record, might not ever play baseball again, much less pass The Great Bambino...."The Sultan of Swat! The Colossus of Clout! The Colossus of Clout! BABE RUTH!"
