Jose Morelos

We were told that we needed to invade Iraq because they were the culprits in the September 11 attack, but we now know this was not true. We were told that there were weapons of mass destruction ready to be hurled at us, but none were because there were none. Ted Haggard, thundered against sin and drugs and homosexuality, but he was caught smoking crack and paying for sex to a male prostitute. Eliot Spitzer, the governor of NY, Mr. Clean, who rode a wave of anti corruption in Wall Street and fought crimes in Time Square, was caught as a client of a prostitution ring under investigation by the federal government. Just recently we were told that we needed to approve 60 billion to bail out financial institutions, or the financial system would collapse. But we now know that many CEOs just pocketed some of the bailout money to give themselves bonuses and pay for expensive hobbies.

Nevertheless, every time one of these revelations came forward we told ourselves: this is the reality of living in a fallen world. "…There is no one righteous, not even one…”

So, why would I think that my sport, God’s sport: baseball, would have been any different? Baseball seemed to be the area of human experience where things appeared to be more fair and transparent and clean. Yes, God’s team, the Yankees, as always, were trying to buy all the best players in the world, but the past five years showed us that championships could not be bought. Yes, there were scandals in the past: Hank Greenber could have broken Babe Ruth’s home run record of 60, but he was Jewish and pitchers kept walking him. Yes, the 1919 White Sox took money to throw games, and yes, Pete Rose gambled on games, but, they had been dealt with and the system seemed to work. Even with Bonds and McGuire, the system worked: both are now relegated as freaks and to baseball’s asterisks.

However, this latest revelation, that Alex Rodriguez was on steroids back in 2003, has truly shocked me. I have suspected that Rodriguez was a self-serving prima donna who only cared about himself, cared more about his own personal records than his team’s overall standings and was incapable of personal sacrifice, other than when it ultimately benefited him. But I also thought that this obsession with himself and his looks would prevent him from cheating with steroids. I believed him when in 2007 on 60 Minutes, when asked by Katie Couric: “…for the record, have you ever used steroids, human growth hormone or any other performance-enhancing substance?...” he said: “…I've never felt overmatched on the baseball field. I've always been a very strong, dominant position. And I felt that if I did my work as I've done since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I didn't have a problem competing at any level. So, no,…"

I believed him, not because he was so trustworthy , but because I thought he was so narcissistic that he would not want to do anything that would jeopardize his good looks, his image, the adulation of his fans or his income potential. In other words, I saw in his own character weakness the safeguarding mechanism for him not cheating. But, I was wrong, for truly: "…there is no one righteous, not even one…”