How about the last month of the Yankees offseason? 
First it was Torre’s book. Then it was Alex Rodriguez’s steroid admission. In a week we’ll be hearing about Mark Teixeira’s links to steroids as a Texas Ranger (other notables from that 2003 team: ARod, Palmeiro, Gonzalez). And fans are certainly going to have to start sweating it out to see if their savior at short will be a lifetime Yankee.
For the record: it’s certainly ARod’s fault for taking steroids. He’s going to have to reap whatever comes his way for taking part in one of the biggest debaucheries in sport and his legacy will forever be written as the face of the steroid era.
But the Players Union royally screwed this one up, and it’s only a matter of time before the other 103 names are leaked. Under a false cloud of security, the Players Union agreed to drug test players for Major League Baseball to see if there was a steroid problem among their athletes. The names and the tests were separated for anonymity, and the names were supposed to be destroyed immediately following the tests obvious conclusion. Of course they weren’t and the slew of reporters, investigators, and lawyers finally did the inevitable; they matched the names on the list with the samples tested.
What a mess.
The silver lining in the situation is that Alex Rodriguez came clean today. But is there any hope he can save his image?
He took the noble first step of immediately coming clean, but he’s not going to be able to stop there. Looking at another drug-laden sport, cycling, one athlete seemed to be able to actually transcend his previous reputation after being caught for using banned substances. David Millar, currently of Garmin-Slipstream was caught in 2004 for doping; however, unlike other athletes at the time (like ARod), he came clean about it. He also took it several steps further and became one of the most proactively self-tested athletes in the sport with an unprecedented level of public transparency. Beyond that he became a figurehead of changing the culture of the sport by increasing doping awareness among professional and amateur cyclists alike. This altered the public’s perception of Millar as being just another doper, to a cyclist who was victimized by the steroid abusive culture he took part in. He in turn has become one of the most well respected faces of cycling.
Now is it going to be that easy for Alex Rodriguez?
Probably not given the nature of New York. But becoming a figurehead of steroid awareness among his peers and aspiring athletes alike in an effort to change the culture of baseball would be a healthy start. Beyond that, taking a page out of Millar’s book (and now Lance’s) by creating an infallable self-testing program that gives an unprecedented level of transparency to the fans and media and advocating for all professional athletes to become active members in the program could not only save face, but make him one of the saviors of baseball.
He will always be linked to steroid use and his records will always be disputed. But fortunately for ARod, people have short memories and there’s still time to turn this negative into the single thing that cleaned up the sport. Few people have the clout to pull this off.
These are critical moments for Alex Rodriguez.
He’s started off strong.
The Minnesota Twins announced their first major acquisition of the winter 
acquiring Joe Crede, stating that a Buscher/Harris platoon puts up similar numbers at a fraction of Crede’s cost and health problems.
