Trust me when I say this:
The negative reaction from the media that A-Rod is going to get will make the recent negative reactions for Michael Phelps seem like child's play.
A-men. Most of America thinks Michael Phelps was played by Peter Graves.
How naive is the general public? For over two decades, major league baseball players would come back from winter break having seemingly added 20 pounds of solid muscle and credited it to having become exercise freaks. The off-season is less than four months long. You can't add three pounds of solid muscle in four months without being juiced, and even if you do, your weight will probably stay the same.
Over the years, I have noticed player after player coming to spring training with new bodies. On the Red Sox, Nomar Garciaparra, Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez, and of course. Clemens. Clemens sucked in 1993-1995, but then came back in 1996 with a new body and his career was revived.
What happened to Cal Ripkin's hair? From 1987 to 1993, Ripkin, age 26-32, played every game at shortstop and hit a meager .250 to .262 in six of those seven seasons, and every year, when he was in the thralls of a woeful batting slump, people would start saying he was hurting the team by playing every day when the 6'4" 220 pound shortstop would surely have benefitted from an off-day here and there.
Then, over the next five years, at ages 33-37, he still played every game at shortstop yet his batting average went up an average of twenty points a season. How many games did Ernie Banks play at shortstop after the age of 30? Zero' How many did Rico Petrocelli play? Very few. No one can play everyday shortstop, even taking a dozen games off, after the age of 30 unless they have a 28" waistline and come from San Pedro De Makaris or wherever it is that they clone the wiry shortstops.
I hate to have to make this observation, because I love both of these guys, but Kirk Gibson and Ken Griffey Jr. both underwent abrupt body shape transformations late in their careers also. And Gibson lost his hair.
The only one who fooled me was Mark McGwire. I figured that guys who naturally looked like Paul Bunyon were supposed to hit lots of home runs.
And a non-baseball observation here: Who among us thinks he could out-armwrestle Serena Williams?
Hey, what's up with that Opera? First she's fat, then she's thin, then she's fat, then she's thin again. I mean, why can't she just pick one body style and go with it?
- Jerry Seinfeld
