Always Swinging for the Fences (Final Piece)

By John Flemming

Step into the batter’s box. Keep your eye on the ball. Leg kick. Shift weight forward. Follow through. Swing for the fences. Strive for perfection. Repeat.

This was all in a day’s work for Alex Rodriguez, one of the most prolific hitters in modern day baseball, and until recently, the game’s bastion of hope to restore the most sacred of baseball’s records – career homeruns – into the hands of a “pure player”. Now add: avoid the press; meet the press; talk to the press; apologize to fans.; get embarrassed; promise to stay clean; move on; strive for perfection; repeat – to Rodriguez’s job description.

Rodriguez was recently discovered to have used steroids. A shocker, no doubt, to the legions of Rodriguez fans and baseball fans in general, leaving them in disbelief and understandable outrage – for the hope of finding a clean, great player from the steroids era was lost.
It’s perhaps not so shocking when the current nature of American society is taken into consideration. Capitalism in the last couple of decades has spiraled out of control, thanks mainly to the implementation of deregulating economic and political policies. And, it has teamed up with digitalization and globalization to push economic, physical, and mental standards to levels, that for the most part, are unattainable without artificial enhancement, breaking the law, cheating, or in some cases, all three.

Anywhere you look, society’s standards have exceeded the capacities of its members to meet them. Somewhere down the line, the ends became so important that people forgot about the means, allowing for all sorts of questionable methods to be employed in the so called pursuit of happiness.

On campuses around that nation, college students, neglecting moral issues and concerns for their well-being, abuse highly controversial cognitive-enhancing medications just to get that desired GPA – with or without a prescription. A daily dose of Ritalin and Adderall has replaced the natural brain foods of yore; no need for that healthy breakfast before a test. Besides, with one pill you save yourself adding those pesky calories!

And it’s all about watching those calories now too. Well, it’s about looking like a movie star regardless of what one’s ever-dominant genes have in store for them. From 2005 to 2006 there was a 7% increase in cosmetic surgeries, totaling in more than 11 million Scarlett Johansen breast augmentations, J-Lo butt implants, Sharon Stone nose jobs, Angelina Jolie collagen injected lips, and Daniel Craig peck implants.

Businesses – think Wall Street – driven by greedy CEOs and shareholders’ demands for out-of-this-world profits, have led to the implementation of risky business philosophies, some of which are out-right illegal, and have paved the way for a grave economic recession.
In some instances, the economical demands placed on businesses have compromised the professional integrity of whole industries not traditionally motivated by profits. Ever since the Tribune Company purchased The Los Angeles Times in 2007, the newspaper’s near annual revenue of $200 million dollars has been deemed insufficient and journalistic quality considered expendable.

Alex Rodriguez is but a mere microcosm of the larger societal problem, just one amebic manifestation representing the devolution of the organic fiber. It’s just that his case is so fascinating. Because, no matter that he is one of the most naturally talented individuals to play the game: Rodriguez at the age of 18 played in his first major league game starting at shortstop for the Seattle Mariners at the hallowed grounds of Fenway Park. No matter that in 2000, Rodriguez signed a staggering ten-year deal worth $252 million with the Texas Rangers, which, at the time, was the most expensive contract ever awarded to an athlete in sports history.

Rodriguez, though possessing the rare natural skill, attractive physique, and insurmountable financial success, still succumbed to the callings of a perverted culture of competition to be better than good, more good than excellent, to be excellently perfect. In his own words, “I felt a tremendous pressure to play and play really well. I felt like I was going up against the whole world. I just signed this enormous contract”.

Boy, and has he been excellently perfect – at least as close to excellently perfect with regards to baseball statistics. Rodriguez has assembled some of the most prolific offensive seasons in the history of the game combining for career totals of 1,605 runs scored, 2,404 hits, 1,606 RBIs, and 553 homeruns. He is the only player to hit 150 homeruns for three different teams – the Mariners, Rangers, and Yankees – and he is the youngest player to reach the elite 500-career homerun plateau.

Yet, the interesting thing about this age of artificial enhancement is that everyone wants to make it appear like they achieved their goals without aid. That’s why Rodriguez never admitted to steroid use until being caught, why banks kept mum on their foreseeable predicament, why celebrities and everyday people keep their cosmetic alterations a secret and why students don’t reveal to their parents the black market origin of their new study guides. Individuals, it seems, want to say they did it through struggle, hard work, and merit even though they took the short cut; we want to have our cake and eat it too. It’s the American paradox of the 21st century. But, the only people we are fooling is ourselves. Because as soon as people realize you took the easy way you are discredited, trivialized, and asterisked. Just ask A-Rod.

Alex Rodriguez, though statistically in the same rank of baseball legends Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, and Roger Maris, will never be idolized and revered with the same romanticism. The Babe did it on hot dogs and beer; now A-Rod did it on a clandestine mixture of Primobolan and who knows what other mad-scientist concoctions.

If Alex Rodriguez couldn’t resist the pressures of society to exceed his natural potential at any means necessary, then what’s in the cards for the child of working class parents, who try as he might, still struggles in math class, never receives Valentines, and is always picked last on the playing field?