If the tallest tree in the forest cracks at the base, and everyone in the country hears it, do we have an obligation to prop it back up? Or can we just fire up the chainsaws and get the dismantling over with?

Alex Rodriguez is hardly the most heartbreaking name that’s recently been scrawled into the steroid-cheat record books, but he’s certainly the most relevant. By the time they infamously appeared before a Congressional committee a few years back, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmiero et al were either gone from the game or on the downhill slope – as were Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens even before their denouements devolved into potential prison terms. But A-Rod is still only 33, still at the peak of his (however imperfect) powers, still picking up $27 mil a year from the laughably duped Steinbrenners.

He’s got a lot of productive years remaining, assuming his body holds up. His head, however, is a different story. What’s the psychology now, for a man who must pull it together and continue his pursuit of a lifetime home-run record that few will respect? What’s the incentive for a guy to get back on the field and commence the second half of a career that looks brilliant on paper, but whose merits have already been downgraded in the more important realm of baseball mythology — and whose Hall of Fame prospects may never recover from the revelations of the past week?

Granted, there are 275 million bits of greenback motivation – and Rodriguez will need every one of those simoleons to maintain the perfect shape of his coif and the silky sheen of his skin, not to mention the gold-diggers who likely will be the only women he can attract now that that wacked-out Madonna thing ended in tears. Still, it’s difficult to imagine this pretty boy playing out his Yankees contract with anything like the panache expected when he signed it last winter. He just doesn’t seem the type to develop a thick skin and a steely resolve in response to the first real adversity he’s ever experienced.

You’re probably clued in by now to my lack of sympathy for A-Rod’s predicament. So, Alex, you felt pressure to live up to your $250 million, guaranteed contract? Boo frickin’ hoo! And you gave up the juice as soon as you found out about your positive test, right about the same time baseball finally cracked down on chemical enhancements? Where can we pin your medal? (It’s not as though he gave up cheating, anyway. Between his pathetic attempt to knock the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s hand during the ’04 ALCS collapse, and his bush-league ploy of yelling “I got it!” while running the bases a couple years ago, to induce an error by Toronto’s third baseman, the man clearly has trouble stifling his instinct to get around the rules of fair play.)

Even his mea culpas this week seemed designed to help him elude actual punishment. Yes, I was on the juice, but only while baseball’s “culture” turned a blind eye to cheats. Absolutely, I purchased steroids – but I did it legally, in the Dominican Republic, where testosterone is sold over-the-counter like Pez. No question I broke the rules and imperiled my health – but I was young and stupid (or as “young and stupid” as a guy can be who had already completed eight Major League seasons, and earned over $60 million in salary, by his 28th birthday in 2003). And of course I kept it secret all this time, and lied about it to Katie Couric – my “cousin” and I hadn’t even been sure we were taking anything improper! (more…)