BOSTON — On June 6, 2006, news broke that federal agents had raided the Arizona home of Diamondbacks pitcher Jason Grimsley, the former Yankee, in search of human growth hormone. Much worse, it became known that Grimsley, in a discussion with notorious IRS special agent Jeff Novitzky, had named other players who had used illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
Grimsley, realizing the severity of his wrongdoing, informed his teammates that night he would leave the club. He never pitched professionally again and hasn't been heard from since.
Fast-forward to last night at Fenway Park, with a typically tranquil Alex Rodriguez sitting in the visitors' dugout a couple of hours before the first pitch of this crucial Yankees-Red Sox series. Answering charges similar to those that sent Grimsley underground.
REUTERS
IN THE LINE OF FIRE: Alex Rodriguez addresses the media before last night's game in Boston, where Red Sox fans gave him a hard time.
"It's not true," Rodriguez told reporters. "I spoke to [Francisco] Cervelli this morning. We had a positive conversation. He understands that it's not true. We're on the same page.''
For A-Rod's sake, the "60 Minutes" report that broke yesterday — that Rodriguez's camp leaked the names of Cervelli, Brewers superstar Ryan Braun and the since-acquitted Danny Valencia as Biogenesis clients to Yahoo! Sports — had best not be true. The accusation of being a snitch poses an even greater threat to A-Rod's already tenuous status in the players' fraternity than do the allegations that constitute Major League Baseball's 211-game suspension he is appealing.
As one member of the Red Sox asked, on the condition of anonymity, "If that's true, how does he even walk back into that clubhouse?"
It's in the Yankees' best interests to presume A-Rod's innocence on this matter. They're trying to make a miracle postseason run, and Rodriguez actually has helped since his Aug. 5 return; he contributed two singles, a walk and a stolen base to the Yankees' 10-3 pounding of the Sawx last night. They don't need to jump to conclusions, however sound they may prove to be, and create another storm when they've already weathered so many.
"Alex has denied it," Curtis Granderson said. "So that's what I'm going with."
Said Vernon Wells: "That's a personal thing. That's between him and Francisco."
Nevertheless, as Rodriguez himself said, "For the next seven weeks, it's going to be a very, very bumpy road. Every day, you can expect a story like this to come out there." Some of those will actually not be A-Rod's doing. You'll trace many others back to the man himself, because that's what makes him A-Rod.
In some industry circles, this story passed the smell test. The theory is this: A-Rod, having been exposed a few days prior in the Miami New Times as a top client of Biogenesis (the now-shuttered South Florida anti-aging clinic, in case you just started following baseball this morning), was looking to spread the blame and the pain.
Getting Braun's and Cervelli's names out there, the former a highly suspected user and the latter a member of the Yankees, indeed gave us media folks more ground to cover. It's possible that, if not for this leak, we wouldn't have been aware at this juncture of this pair's involvement. Perhaps without the public pressure of their names being out there, they might have been more willing to appeal their suspensions — Braun accepted a 65-game ban, and Cervelli a 50-game sentence — and we wouldn't even know their names were in the system.
We've seen how much this generation of players despises illegal PED users; Red Sox players Jonny Gomes and John Lackey are among those who have publicly questioned why A-Rod gets to stay on the field during his appeal. However, there's still nothing that can top throwing your fellow players under the bus. Especially a teammate.
A-Rod gets the benefit of the doubt in his own clubhouse for now, and that's the way it should be. But if this accusation gets substantiated, he'll have to pull off his greatest damage-control maneuver to date.
Or, in the Yankees' fantasy, it could open A-Rod's mind to negotiating a settlement to the money still owed him — giving up some of his guaranteed money, since he'd be persona non grata — and just leaving the game forever.
Illegal PEDs got Grimsley a 50-game suspension. Naming names essentially banned him from the game for life. True, A-Rod is a far bigger name and force than Grimsley, yet the truth remains that a rat is baseball's lowest-regarded species. This would be a new valley for A-Rod, and by gosh, that's saying something, isn't it?
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