Baseball fans over history have embraced the beginning of Major League Baseball’s Spring Training as a time to rejoice in the end of another long cold winter. Fans scout their teams and proclaim, “This is our year.” Why not? Everybody starts the regular season in first place on opening day.

In recent years a new tradition has begun. The start of Spring Training has marked a time for another steroid era bombshell coming out of Yankee camp, and this year’s Bronx bombshell was the biggest of all. First there was Jason ‘Juicambino’ Giambi and Gary ‘Cream Chef’ Sheffield. Then there was Andy Pettite and Roger ‘the Roider’ Clemens. Now, as pitchers and catchers were reporting with position players on their way, Sports Illustrated broke the news that the so-called greatest player in the game Alex ‘A-Rod’ Rodriguez had tested positive for a banned substance in 2003.

The spring had already gotten off to a rocky start for A-Rod as excerpts from former manager Joe Torre’s book The Yankee Years hit the press. In the book, co-authored by Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, it was revealed that opposing team’s fans weren’t the only ones calling A-Rod “A-Fraud.” Apparently, the super slugger’s phony demeanor when he arrived in the Bronx led his teammates to refer to him as A-Fraud. Also, it was stated that A-Fraud developed a Single White Female-like obsession with Yankee captain Derek Jeter. These damning comments were all the talk, grabbing all the headlines in the New York media but quickly becoming old news when the steroid story broke.

Fans now had a new name for A-Fraud, A-Roid. A-Roid had dodged rumors in the past year that he was on the juice. The claim came from the former player who broke the steroid story open when he wrote the book Juiced. Jose ‘Can You See’ Canseco claimed that MLB’s Mitchell Report was incomplete because it didn’t contain the name of Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez then went on CBS’s 60 Minutes and told Katie Couric that not only had he never taken steroids, but he never even felt compelled to do so because he “never felt overmatched on the baseball field”.

When Sports Illustrated reporter Selena Roberts broke the story that he did, in fact, take steroids and had been caught doing so, A-Roid was given the opportunity to come clean and fess up to the whole thing. He failed miserably in his apology and confession. A-Roid threw his cousin under the bus, claiming it was all his idea. He claimed that he didn’t even know what he was taking or if it was working, but that he did inject it every month for three years while playing in Texas. He referred to his use as “amateur hour”. He claimed what he was taking “wasn’t tic tacs” but it was a substance that was readily available over the counter in his native Dominican Republic. The substance, primobolan, which he referred to as “boli”, is banned in the D.R. and not even available with a doctor’s note. These claims among other idiotic statements earned A-Roid even more scorn from the New York Yankee fan base.

The Yankee brass, of course, has backed their super slugger. Considering the fact that they just let him opt-out of his mega $250 million contract (which A-Roid claimed was the reason he began taking tic tacs) only to crawl back and re-negotiate an even more outrageous $300 million contract. They have no choice but to embrace him. The new contract was negotiated under the belief that A-Roid would bring dignity back to the game of baseball and chase the real home run king ‘Hammerin’ Hank Aaron’s mark, which was broken by another steroid user Barry ‘U.S.’ Bonds. MLB had their pure hitting savior. The New York Yankees had their ticket salesmen for the new Yankee Stadium. Now they have nothing but a hefty salary to pay and empty seats in the new stadium because no one can afford the over-priced tickets. The news continues to get worse.

As the one-thing-after-another spring unfolded, it was announced that A-Roid had a serious hip injury caused by a cyst. Perhaps the cyst was caused by years of injecting steroids. Before the heat of the mass media could wear him down in Yankee Spring Training camp, he was sent to Colorado for surgery and rehab. The injury could be career threatening. For now, the Yankees are hoping minor surgery will allow him to miss only six weeks, and then he will have to manage his way through a season and get major surgery when it ends.

As the news of this sunk in, another shocking development occurred. Fans were disgusted by the sight of A-Roid turning into Self Love-Rod in a photo shoot that went along with an interview he did with Details Magazine. The creepy photos were highlighted by a shot of Self Love-Rod kissing his own reflection in the mirror in a rather provocative way. Other provocative poses were also on display in what looked like a soft-porn photo shoot. The interview and pictures were done a day after Self Love-Rod found out he was about to be outed as just another steroid user. Maybe this was his way of outing himself for something else. The reporter who did the story later revealed that during his sit-down with Self Love-Rod the fallen slugger was sipping Patron Tequila. Not necessarily the best way to begin regaining respect for his damaged reputation.

Just as the overloaded fans were putting this despicable display aside, another perhaps not-so surprising story broke. Self Love-Rod was also Madam-Rod. The Madam who notoriously provided disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer with call-girls stated that not only was Call Girl-Rod a client, but he was also a personal acquaintance, and the Madam had saved text messages to prove it. Madam-Rod had previously been linked to strippers who he paraded around cities when his teams were on road trips. This and the fact that he became involved with the Material Girl Madonna led to his ultimate divorce.

Over the years, fans have called the so-called greatest player in the game A-Fraud for being over-hyped, Pay-Rod for being over-paid, May-Rod for not coming up big in October, E-Rod for committing big errors, K-Rod for striking out in the clutch, ‘Ha’-Rod for his bush-league play, Stray-Rod for cheating on his wife.  Now they can add A-Roid, Self Love-Rod and Madam-Rod to the list. Whatever name A-Rod goes by, there is one thing that everyone can agree on calling him, and that is a disgrace.

Play Ball! Please!