Certain things a lot of people like to do I don't have any use for. One is claiming that the Patriots aren't great or deserve an asterisk over something as trivial as deflategate. You see there's a double standard there as even the people knocking the Pats do acknowledge that nobody would have been talking about deflated footballs if it was the Jagauars or the Falcons doing it.
Actually, we know this for a fact as the Falcons are also in trouble for flouting league rules and nobody is talking about it. Supposedly they have been creating artificial noise the last few years. You do to be sure feel like how can you blame them when they have so few fans they need to give themselves artificial noise just to give themselves a normal homefield advantage.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/02/resolved-other-teams-in-nfl-cheat-other.html
Also, it's pretty clear that if the Falcons have cheated the last 2 years it hasn't helped them much. The double standard with critics and the Patriots is rather sickening though.
If there is anything I'm more sick of than bashing the Pats over what amounts to many running a traffic light or jaywalking-everyone seems to think they have to pay some huge penalty-it's A-Rod bashing.
Why does everyone hate him so much? Don't tell me it's steroids as nobody even remembers that Andy Petitie and Jason Giambi were charged with steroids too.
"There was a time, between his Tampa tent revival and Biogenesis, when Yankees voices were not drilling down into Alex Rodriguez’s performance enhanced past. When it came to pinstriped cheaters, like Andy Pettitte and Jason (The Giambalco) Giambi, this was also standard operating procedure.
"This is not to say the performance-enhancing stylings of these players were never mentioned. They were — briefly, before voices moved on to real baseball matters. There was every reason to believe orders, er, suggestions about ignoring, er, dealing with Yankees PED issues were passed directly down to the broadcast booths from the Yankees’ high command."
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/raissman-a-rod-impossible-dislike-suzyn-waldman-article-1.2122228
It's not about the steroids this just provides the excuse. Don't get me wrong, I'm the rare person who thinks the moral panic over steroids itself was both wrongheaded and very unfortunate: it's been pointed out that the NFL never went through what MLB did even though the use of things like HGH is very prevalent in football.
One compelling reason that has been suggested for why this is: in the NFL unlike MLB most announcers and tv media are former football players. In baseball the 'purists' have the upper hand and so we have Prohibition in baseball. So the purists have won but I'd argue the product of baseball has suffered: it was a much better game pre-cleansing of steroids.
Football has never been better while baseball has never been worse. Baseball has become a boring pitcher's league while football is a high octane QB's league.
Back to A-Rod. As Susan Waldman who's seen some baseball in her time, will tell you, the hatred for A-Rod way predated steroids.
Balanced commentary coming out of the booths concerning A-Rod will be brief and fleeting. Your Yankees world has been officially turned upside down. Suzyn (Ma Pinstripe) Waldman is torn. She knows the stain on Rodriguez’s career is indelible.
“But I find him impossible to dislike,” Waldman, the Yankees radio analyst, told me during a telephone conversation. “I’m not defending him. I think what he did was stupid more than anything else. I know he’s lied. He’s made every wrong decision. He says things and does things and you just want to say ‘Why?’ I also know you can’t go wrong for dumping on Alex. This is what it's become. What’s he supposed to do?”
She makes a great point here:
“The way this offense is (coming into spring training) they better hope he still can play,” she said. “Look, it’s not my job to psychoanalyze Alex. What I do, and sometimes don’t, understand is the anger directed at him. This just didn’t start with the steroids. His persona, for many people, has never been likeable.”
"The “why” of this is something she has questioned for years. They go way back, to long before he even came to the Yankees. And Waldman can detail A-Rod’s first road trip as a Bomber as if it just happened — Seattle, Boston, Texas. The booing was vicious, especially during the first game in Arlington."
What's interesting is no one can ever answer why they don't like him-we've already shown it's not the steroids. As a Yankees fan though how can he be a distraction? This is a team that scored 634 runs last year. Any distraction will be welcome.
“Just look at this team. This isn’t the ’98 Yankees coming up here,” Waldman said. “They (the players) are probably going to like the distraction. Everyone (reporters) will be in Alex’s corner of the clubhouse and not asking some pitcher why his elbow blew out.
I don't like A-Rod bashing because:
1. I don't like going after low-handing fruit, People doing this are bullies going after an easy target. It's almost like front-running in reverse, picking on the guy everyone picks on.
2. No one can explain why they hate him so much.
3. People try to play like it's about the steroids but I also don't like all the hysteria over steroids and think the game was better before than now that 'the game's been cleaned up.'
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