Alex Rodriguez Is Sorry He Cheated And Lied To Make His Millions. Shaughnessy Apologizes To Him.

Dan Shaughnessy writes sports stuff for the Boston Globe. The Globe apparently pays him to do it. Today he boo-hoos that he doesn’t understand the vitriol being showered on Alex Rodriguez, who plays professional baseball for the oh-so-professional New York Yankees.

First, full disclosure. The Lion thinks baseball is at least as boring as watching a fat person tan at the beach. It’s possibly even more boring than American football as presented by the NFL.

That said, this Rodriguez fellow is pretty much the superstar of superstars in the baseball world. He hits a lot of home runs. He’s photogenic. He gets pretty women. He makes more money than his fans in the bleachers could spend in a lifetime.

He had a contract with the Texas Rangers that paid him something like $180 million dollars. He traded that out for a contract with the Yankees that pays him $270 million over ten years.

He lives a pampered life of privilege and perks.

He earned it by cheating and lying. He admitted it. He took steroids to bulk himself up so he could become the best player that ever was, according to him. By cheating.

Okay, fine. Lots of ballplayers cheat and lie when it comes to steroids. Nothing they say can be trusted and whatever stats they put up in the statistic crazed world of baseball are worthless. A Bonds or Rodriguez home run is a cheap shot, not worth the baseball hide it’s imprinted on.

Al got caught, years after the fact. You can’t miss the story. It’s bigger than the economic meltdown. And once caught he went on the air and said he was sorry, he was young, he was naive, blah blah blah.

And then bunches of baseball writers and newspapers and editorialists went after him, heaping various degrees of vitriol on him for cheating his way to fame and fortune.

Shaughnessy doesn’t understand it. ‘But why so much hate? Why so much glee at the sight of another superstar with feet of clay?’ writes Danny boy.

The Lion suspects that Shaughnessy simply doesn’t read the rest of his newspaper, the part about the economic meltdown in which millions of Americans have lost their jobs, millions have lost their homes, and more misery is on the way. Those people didn’t do anything wrong to get what they had. They mostly came by it honestly.

Then the rich and the powerful up on Wall Street took it away from them, and then got their asses bailed out by the government handing them billions of tax dollars from the very people whose lives the financial ne’er-do-wells ruined.

And then Mr. Alex Rodriguez, with his hundreds of millions of dollars, his privileged lifestyle, his pampered career hitting baseballs, playing a kid’s game, comes along and says he cheated and lied to get all of that good stuff. Not only that, but he won’t even have to pay any penalty, other than some embarrassment at having to admit in public that he’s a cheat and a liar.

He gets to keep his Midas contract with the Yankees. He gets to keep the money. He gets to keep his job. He even gets to keep fans who adore him, which says a lot about America. Oh, maybe he loses an endorsement or two, maybe a million dollars here or there in potential income. But that’s it.

But Shaughnessy doesn’t understand the vitriol engendered by this sleazebag as the country swirls down the drain because of the actions of the rich and the powerful who cheated and lied in their lust for money.

Maybe Danny might do better to ask what Rodriguez and his mega-millionaire baseball buddies have done to improve the lives of any of the people being slammed by the economic disaster. What’s that, Dan? Oh, they entertained the fans by playing baseball, and so what if they cheated a little. That’s okay with Dan, apparently. After all, Rodriguez said he’s sorry.

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