Feb 10, 2009 10:59 am US/Eastern
Baseball Fans React To A-Rod's Steroids Admission
BOSTON (CBS) ―
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Alex Rodriguez admitted to using steroids on Monday.
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The phones lines at sports talk radio station WEEI were full. Some callers waited 20, 30, even 40 minutes to go on the air to talk about Yankees star Alex Rodriguez.
"So I'm supposed to believe A-Rod did steroids in 2001, 2002 and 2003, then suddenly quit when he went to New York?" said one caller.
Doug in Sturbridge, Mass. said "It makes his apology ring completely hollow."
The All Star third baseman admitted in an
ESPN interview he used performance enhancing drugs from 2001 to 2003 while he was a member of the Texas Rangers. He said he felt an enormous amount of pressure to perform, and apologized to fans for his actions.
"I do think there's a piece of it that says A-Rod reacted to societal pressures," said Dan Lebowitz, Executive Director of the Center for Sport in Society at Northeastern University.
While Lebowitz believes society puts a lot of pressure on athletes to be super athletes, he says the blame still lies primarily with one person. "There's a personal responsibility and that personal responsibility starts and ends with Alex Rodriguez."
Lebowitz says Rodriguez now joins a growing list of players, like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, who will always have, in the public's mind, an asterisk next to their name and achievements.
"You can't measure him now against the greats of all time because you look at a Mays or an Aaron or people who competed in a non-steroid era and automatically you think of the natural athlete verses the super natural athlete enhanced by drugs."
As he took call after call from listeners who lambasted A-Rod, radio talk show host Glenn Ordway knew that was the reaction to expect in Boston, where the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry runs so deep. "You're not going to get a really objective opinion here in Boston."
But, Ordway says if the other 100-plus names on that list of players who flunked their drug tests ever become public, his listeners may be changing their tune.
"I think the real test will be in this market if out of those 103 names if some of those pop out and happen to be wearing Red Sox uniforms, it will be interesting to see what the reaction is then."
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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