It started with A-Rod and only got worse. But before you go any further here, take a detour and sign up on Facebook to be a fan of the Star Tribune’s baseball page.

What was Bud Selig thinking when he told USA Today that he would consider reinstating Hank Aaron as baseball’s all-time home run king owing to the steroid mess? Let me repeat: Statistics are statistics — and it’s up to baseball fans and others to decide what to make of them. Barry Bonds can lead the majors in career home runs and Alex Rodriguez may eventually pass him, but you have every right to consider Hank Aaron your home run king. That’ll play out more finitely when Bonds, A-Rod, Clemens are others are up for Hall of Fame balloting, which will be the ultimate test of how their accomplishments will be viewed.

If you haven’t seen it, here’s the interview that A-Rod did with Katie Couric in December 2007 — right after the Mitchell Report was released — in which A-Rod talks about steroids in a way that makes everything he says from now until the end of time suspect.

Then there was Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt, who has decided that “A-Rod’s numbers shouldn’t count for anything” because of the impact, theoretically, it could have had on Roy Oswalt. “The few times we played them, when he got hits, it could have cost me a game,” Oswalt told mlb.com. “It could have cost me money in my contract. He cheated me out of the game and I take it personally, because I’ve never done [PEDs], haven’t done it, and they’re cheating me out of the game.”In a culture where so many players have taken the “none of my business” approach, I’m having trouble getting worked up on his behalf.

How come the test samples weren’t destroyed? There are two contrasting views out there that actually can be made to fit together quite well. One was that the union was hoping to find false positives in an effort to bring the percentage of positives under the 5 percent threshold that set off the mandatory testing program. The other was that a federal grand jury issues a subpoena for the test results only six days after the union received them. Well, maybe the union was going to look for false positives and got ambushed by the subpoena. Whatever the case, it will be interesting to watch how the relationship between the players and their union leadership evolves in the months and years to come. This doesn’t seem like a great time to be a player rep.

Torii Hunter has positioned himself among the loudest voices among players who think the other 103 names on the positive list should be released, apparently out of fairness to A-Rod. The best part of Hunter’s carrying on was his wonderful acknowledgment that baseball players live in a separate world from the rest of us. About steroid use, Torii told mlb.com: “It was illegal in the world, but before 2004, it wasn’t [considered illegal] in baseball.” Darn, I miss T-Nutts.

How should major-league baseball handle the offending 104? In 1986, baseball suspended seven players (including Dave Parker and Keith Hernandez) for one year, with the understanding they would not have to miss playing time if they submitted to random drug tests, performed community service and donated 5 to 10 percent of their salaries to drug-prevention or drug-treatment programs. Without making the list public, that would seem to be a fitting penalty for the current group of players — and an idea that Selig and union leadership could work together on. After all, despite the wisdom of Torii Hunter, if something was illegal “in the world,” it was also illegal in baseball.

Speaking of loud voices, Sirius XM-radio genius Seth Everett announced a few days back that the former Mrs. A-Rod had to be one of the four Sports Illustrated sources about her ex-husband’s drug test. Everett said he didn’t have proof, “but I think so.” The media gods are still shuddering, and so are the rest of us who understand the difference between what we’d say to a friend in a text message or a bar and what we’d say or write for public consumption.

Thanks goodness that pitchers and catchers are reporting this weekend and we have the home team’s Joe Crede inaction to distract us. Can’t promise that I’m not going to talk about drugs after this, but I’m gonna do my best to stay clean.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 14th, 2009 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.