My reaction to the Arod press conference

I recall watching the Andy Pettitte's news conference a year ago from the same uniform, location, tent. His statements and answers were very genuine and true emotion and regret could be seen and heard from Roger Clemens' little buddy. Seriously, it felt like Pettitte was just a scared little boy hoping him mommy didn't find out he was out past curfew, so he simply fessed up and went to his room.

The opening statement from Arod was just humorous. I can imagine all his Yankee teammates and journalist in attendance trying too keep in their laughs and giggles as Alex read his statement. I'm going to assume that Arod knows how to read, though with 500 million dollars you probably don't need to, so I'm guessing that was the first time Arod even looked at that statement prior to presenting it to the world. The way his sentence structure was all choppy, and tenses out of order, and lack of flow to the whole thing made Sammy's "me no speeky english" seem eloquent. BTW, Arod hired Sammy's lawyer from the congressional hearing, and Sammy made a comeback so he must be good. Then to cap it all off, Arod proclaimed "and to my teammates" which clearly(wink wink) overwhelmed him with emotion, as he went silent for 2 minutes, scrunching his face in agony, leaning back in his chair, taking a sip of water, before finally getting out a "thank you". For being such a great baseball player, this guy just cant get out of his own way outside the baseball diamond.

I doubt anyone bought Arod's story, outside of Buster Olney who just seems like he's trying to protect the players and the game. Arod seamlessly avoided answering the majority of the questions, going to the same excuse over and over of him being young, stupid, and naive. He clearly forgot to throw in oblivious. Baseball is seriously lacking a Cal Ripken Jr. type leader to represent and stand up for today's players. Jeter seems like a good choice, but is too quiet and protective of his image to open up too much. Schilling wants to be the voice of the players, but the players just want him to shut up. Baseball is the perfect game, yet has been smeared with controversy throughout it's existence. Nothing in the universe is perfect all the time, so lets just accept the past for what it was, learn from it, and move on.

Arod is still one of my favorite players in the game. I remember him winning the batting title at the age of 21, his three 50 homer seasons, 40-40 season, his gold glove SS play(although he made 2 errors his first game as a Ranger). He never came across as the most intimidating batter to face, considering my brain seizes every time Pujols come to the plate. Still, it is undeniable to me the greatness of Alex Rodriguez, and I dont think it should be to the Hall of Fame as well.