MLB – Alex Rodriguez hits his 600th homerun at Yankee Stadium

Alex Rodriguez is perhaps one of the finest third baseman the sport has seen. He played shortstop at the Seattle Mariners and the Texas Rangers before making a change to the New York Yankees to round up a great career at MLB. He is the youngest player to have hit the 500 home run mark, and now, he is the youngest to hit the 600, improving Babe Ruth’s mark by over one full year. In 2007, Rodriguez signed a 10 year contract valued over 275 million dollars. That is the highest paying professional sports contract ever signed.

With this new deal with the Yankees, he surpassed his previous record deal of 252 million with the Texas Rangers. He is one of the best all around players, and the feat of becoming the youngest player to hit the 600 mark would have been quite an achievement. But then there is a whole other side to this story. He could have been a hero, but in an era of baseball after Barry Bonds, it has become quite evident that his use of steroids and other sport enhancing drugs has tainted what could and should have been a great success for the talented player.

The player confessed to the use of performance enhancing drugs in 2007 after a group of reporters from Sports Illustrated made en exhaustive investigation. The player really had not much of an option but to step up and accept the charges. He said that he had to deal with too much pressure at that point. Back in 2001, he had doubled the best sports salary in the US, making Kevin Garnett’s agreement with the Minnesota Timberwolves in the NBA seem like a matter of little importance. Rodriguez said that it was just simply too much to deal with. He had to prove in every game that he was worth over 250 million dollars for a three-year deal.

That’s when he started to use the drugs. It was really a shame, for baseball fans around the globe. Alex Rodriguez was and is one of the finest batters to have played the game. His eye-arm coordination and the out of this world force he can put upon each of his swings, could have made him made this record without the need of any drug.

Yes, he cheated. Yes, that is going to follow him no matter where he goes. On the other hand, you can inject 95% of the players in the league with double Rodriguez’s dose, give him rocket fuel as part of his daily diet and none of those players would have made it close to ARod’s average and home run mark.

So it is hard to feel truly happy for the guy. He has reached the 600 mark, and it should be a big celebration for the team, the fans and the player. But it is not quite so. Every celebration, every sense of admiration, of congratulation, is in one way or the other tainted by the fact that he had used performance enhancing drugs.

The bottom line is that unless the MLB really starts randomly testing its players for the use of performance enhancing drugs, they are in the verge of loosing credibility. And that is the worst thing that could happen to a professional sport. The doubt is still there. He said once that he had been pushed into the use of performance enhancing drugs because he could not deal with the pressure over at the Texas Rangers. Now he plays for the Yankees with an even higher salary, even bigger bonuses and let’s face it, even more pressure. Skeptics would say he is still using. We are not here to pass judgment. The things is that ARod’s 600th is not as jolly as it could or should have been.