Don’t let Alex Rodriguez make you forget about Ryan Braun
Alex Rodriguez’s laywer. His lawyer on the Today Show. His doctor. The Yankees doctors. Brian Cashman, Ryan Dempster, Joe Girardi, etc., etc. The amount of information about A-Rod over the last few days has been so thick, it’s like trying to drink a milkshake through a straw.
That’s why I want to thank Kirk Gibson.
I want to thank the manager for hitting the refresh button on the player that is far more deserving of the angst of D-backs fans, Ryan Braun.
Gibson reminded us all that there is more than just one villain in this never-ending soap opera when he confessed, out of the clear blue sky, that he has a question for the Brewers’ slugger.
“I told her (Gibson’s wife) that if I get a chance to see Braun, I got a question for him, right to his face. Is he about rehearsed by now? About ready to come out? He’s probably been practicing at theater school somewhere. Anyway, she was looking at how things like that can influence people’s opportunities and the opportunity to do something like that.”
Of course, Gibson never said what the question was; I’m hopeful he’ll tell us today on the Burns and Gambo show, but I’m not overly hopeful.
But I am grateful. It’s an honest glimpse into yet another layer of anger that the latest round of PEDs has revealed. Players are angry. Managers are angry. It’s this new era of agitation that has me and many others encouraged that the worst of performance-enhancers and baseball is behind us.
It’s also a reminder that while all of the national angst is reserved for A-Rod — he is, after all, an easy target — it was Braun’s use of PEDs that might have affected the outcome of a playoff series lost by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Let the A-Rod talk dominate the national headlines, but don’t you dare forget who it was who hit .500 in the divisional series against Arizona and then lied his butt off about it afterwards.
Of course, the national headlines about Braun certainly helped the cause as well. The test taker mishandled the test because he was a Cubs fan? An anti-Semite? Tasteless.
Off the air, Gambo asked me if baseball fans will despise Ryan Braun the way they do Alex Rodriguez. My response?
I hope so.
