Posada Nailed It About PED Users
By Rich Mancuso
BRONX, NEW YORK, MAY 14- Agree or disagree that Jorge Posada is using an opportunity to promote his book “The Journey Home: My Life In Pinstripes” regarding his stance on those who used PED’s to cheat when playing the game of baseball. Agree about this, Posada in Yankees pinstripes played the game clean and has the right to speak about how he may have been cheated out of an MVP award in 2003.
He took it to another level, one that this writer and others have claimed: Those who had to cheat and did not play the game clean should not be granted induction into the Hall of Fame.
And it goes beyond baseball. Tom Brady is now the culprit for deflated footballs and an NFL scandal that has reached epic proportions. And two sports, boxing and horse racing have never seemed to recover from corruption and those who cheat to get ahead.
The year is 2015. Money and greed have ruined sports with television contracts and major sponsorships that provide an incentive to not play the game fair. Back then, when cheating was evident, the desire to cheat and get ahead was a hit or a miss with the financial gain not as significant as it is now.
The year, 2003, Yankees’ teammate Alex Rodriguez got the MVP award and Posada was third in the voting by members of the Baseball Writers of America and Carlos Delgado finished second. We all know the history, and the implications about the A-Rod denials, year long suspension and eventual admission of guilt.
However, we must agree, as Posada said Wednesday: “Yeah” to a question about resenting players who did not play the game clean. Posada would know because there has never been evidence, nor has his name been implicated as one of the many who did not play the game clean.
And it seems the game of baseball will always have to confront the issue that Posada has addressed. The history of this Performing Enhancing Drug issue will always surface when Rodriguez hits another home run, when the names of Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and others who were implicated see their time for possible enshrinement into the Hall.
The vote of members who get the privilege to decide who gets enshrined should be the final answer, however that will always be a debate. The debate continues because the owners supposedly had knowledge of illegal supplements being used that prevented the game from being played on an even field.
Yet, they let the situation continue because baseball needed to put fans in the stands after a bitter labor dispute with the players and owners. Home runs going out of the ballpark at a record pace brought the fans back to the ballpark, and bitterness of a labor war were quickly put to bed.
In the process Jorge Posada, who played the game fair, and who wore the most prestigious uniform in baseball, competed with a teammate. It was competition wearing the same uniform, sitting in the same dugout and in a sanctuary of the same clubhouse.
The Posada book tour, and his comments are years of frustration of being the quiet New York Yankee who went about his business and helped contribute to four world championships in the Bronx.
Agree or disagree, this is an issue a little too late to be venting about. But better late than never because the validity of his comments are true. Had Posada went the route of A-Rod, Bonds or the others, perhaps his name would be in their category.
Of course he is not in that category because Jorge Posada was one of the few who played the game fair. And his day will come when the Yankees put his Number 20 into retirement at a ceremony in the Bronx on August 22.
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