We are all familiar with the nursery rhyme/story about Goldilocks and the three bears. How she stumbles upon their cottage and samples porridge that is too hot, too cold and the other is just right… that’s what she devours. In some ways, Alex Rodriguez (a.k.a. A-Rod) selected what he thought was the middle ground recently when discussing how he knowingly took performance enhancing drugs. The baseball mega-star, and soon to be an all time home run leader, admitted he took drugs shortly after signing with the Texas Rangers. That season he had one of his best offensive seasons in baseball history.
But when Sports Illustrated started reporting about a failed drug test A-Rod decided it was time to put his plan into play.
Seeing how Barry Bonds and Roger Clemmons responded to allegations of steroid use was perhaps seen as too “hot”.
Andy Pettitte’s approach was seen as, perhaps, too cold.
And the middle ground, a road taken by Jason Giambi, seemed like the right move.
So, A-Rod remained silent, signed with the New York Yankees and had a one-on-one tell all interview on ESPN where he accepted responsibility.
Scott Olster, a San Francisco area columnist, has a nice take on the apology in his column on SFGate.
What do we learn from the A-Rod Diplomacy? Disclosure is a good thing. Transparency is better. And, Major League Baseball has larger credibility issues than any institution that has recently accepted TARP funds.