The boom was lowered yesterday. 12 Major League Baseball players were given 50 game suspensions for using performance enhancing drugs. Alex Rodriguez was given a 211 game suspension for using PEDs and for hindering the league’s investigation of the clinic, Biogenesis, responsible for these 13 players (14 when you include Ryan Braun) cheating. There is also talk that he recruited other players to Biogenesis and if so that might be a factor. Only A-Rod is appealing. He is the highest paid player in the sport’s history and he will lose about three times my annual salary per game when the suspension starts. He is allowed to play while the case is under appeal.

211 games amounts to the rest of this season and all of next season. A-Rod is 38 years old. Two years out of the game at this point probably means his career ends when the suspension starts. Good. I want him gone. It’s bad enough that cheating is still rampant in Major League Baseball, but the idea of it’s highest paid player pushing dope to other players is beyond evil. He joins Barry Bonds as the poster children for scum in baseball. Even a gambler on a lifetime ban like Peter Rose can feel comfortable looking down his nose at a jerk like A-Rod.

I feel anger toward every player who gets caught cheating. I don’t look at the two recent Red Sox World Series wins in quite the rosey way I used to now that I know that Manny Ramirez and (probably) David Ortiz were using. It has taken a great deal of fun out of the game of Baseball for me. Still, when players are straight with us I am willing to put it behind me. Ryan Braun will probably be the exception after the way he handled his failed test. Now he’s all apologetic, but for you it’s too little too late. The other 12 players who took their punishment yesterday will come back and all will be right again, assuming they stay off of the crap.

Rodriguez though, like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens before him, is dead to me. He’s taking money over integrity. Cash over self respect. The hell with him. I hope his appeal is denied and he never plays another game. Even though he was a Yankee and a member of the Evil Empire, I once thought of him as the guy who would erase Barry Bonds from the all time home run record book. Sure he comes off like a putz in the personality department, but he’s the best player in the game. If anyone can topple that juiced up cheater Bonds it’s A-Rod. Not anymore. Bonds… Rodriguez… One in the same. I hope they both go away and never come back.