Thursday, June 25, 2009

Buster Olney Whispers

God love, Buster Olney. He's a great reporter and his blog is always full of useful and interesting information. But when he gets on a soapbox, he's a bit like a preacher pointing to the Bible and saying, "You will PAY for your sins!" Today's post starts with "whispers" that A-Rod's problems may be because he is playing without steroids. Oh come on! How absurd is that? Mr. Olney, you are a fuss budget and need to get your high road panties out of a twist.

His colleagues at Baseball Tonight, ESPNs wonderful baseball highlight show, had a much better explanation for A-Rod's struggles. He's being too tentative. The analysts of the show did an excellent job with footage to show an A-Rod not being aggressive enough at the plate. It wouldn't be out of whack to also point to his fielding woes from a lack of aggressiveness. He's playing by taking everything coming at him instead of taking it to the ball with both the glove and the bat.

A-Rod will be fine. He couldn't win no matter how he came back from his hip surgery. If he did well, he would still be a juicer. If he did poorly, then it's because he had to give up the juice. In either case, the truth lies somewhere much more complex and much less dramatic than the laser treatment he gets for his past sins.

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