Throughout my life, I have had a love/hate relationship with baseball. It seems that the notion is true that one is most hurt by the one's he loves.
No matter how old I get, I love baseball. I love the thrill of Spring Training. I love the sounds and the sights that are experienced at a baseball game. I even love the players. And yet, time and time again, they hurt me.
In 1994, at the height of my teenage lovefest with sports, the players of Major League Baseball decided that their salaries mattered more than their fans. They decided that their multimillion dollar contracts were simply not enough for them to go play a sport that many would give anything just to play. They, in my teenage heart, dumped on us all. And I gave up on them.
It took me quite a few years before I would give the MLB players a second chance and let them back into my heart. In 2002, I began to feel the first love all over again that I had experienced as a kid. Now an adult, I returned to my childhood hobby of collecting baseball cards, and watching the games on TV. I made myself vulnerable once again. And again, I have been let down.
Now, there have been some controversies between 2002 and now. From Jose "I can pitch, coach!" Canseco's book about how everyone in baseball has done steroids and cheated on their wives, to the U.S. Senate's hearings about substance abuse, I have looked past a few things and put on my blinders. Call it self preservation and not wanting to be hurt again.
But now... Now Alex Rodriguez, a man who repeatedly denied ever having used performance enhancing drugs, has admited to using them. He has admited that he lied to us all. A-Rod is a player that I never liked, but I was convinced by some people around me that I should like him because he is now a Yankee. I refused to like him and said that he was not a true Yankee, but alas, I let him grow on me. I should have stuck with my original dislike for him.
Again, I have let the players of this sport tear apart the game I love. Again, I have let them tarnish the once beautiful memories that I held of this national pasttime. And again, they have dumped on me. I actually believed that these guys would never do it again. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...
Shame on me.
