Open Letter to A-Rod: Time To Grow Up

Dear Alex, It's been quite a busy couple of days.  I have to admit, I was pretty disappointed when I learned the news of your steroid usage.  In many ways, I wasn't surprised.  It's hard to be with every other day revealing more bad news in this never-ending story. I, like many others, had hoped you were different.  Looking at it now, and what we have learned about you as a person over the years and in Torre's book, this isn't surprising at all.  It seems you've always been a person determined to make your place in baseball history, eager to live up to the expectations that your own ability has created.  If your apology is to be believed, you could have achieved that without steroids and gone down as one of the greatest players in the game. It seems that your personality got in the way.  We've all known that there's something a little different about you, whether it's the need for attention or the controversy magnet that seems implanted in your head.  It was easy to overlook, though, because whatever you may have lacked in likability, you made up for with the bat. Those days are over.  Those gaudy statistics that were once your saving grace can bail you out no more.  They will forever be shrouded in a veil of suspicion, with no one able to determine what was a steroid and what was actually Alex Rodriguez. It is important, then, that you understand what you need to do now.  Your statistics can no longer save you, but your personality can.  It is time to grow up, Alex, and take responsibility for your own life and your own actions.  There is no more leaning on Scott Boras, there is no more claiming you were just a kid trying to live up to expectations.  The expectations now are that you are a greedy, steroid using ballplayer in the vein of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. You need to prove those expectations wrong.  You need to come out and put what's best for the game ahead of what's best for Alex Rodriguez.  You're going to get paid by the Yankees no matter what.  They're stuck with you regardless of what happens.  It's time to take the high road and stop worrying about what people think. How do you start that process?  By being completely frank about what happened.  By cooperating with Major League Baseball about what you know about the steroid era.  By taking your visibility, your star power, and your money, and doing something positive for the people who may have been negatively effected by your use, namely the younger generation in this country. Take your concerns about your statistics and throw them out the window.  Take the pressure off yourself to be the greatest ballplayer ever and put the pressure on yourself to be a good person.  Still play hard.  Still work hard.  But remember, your statistics won't define your legacy anymore.  What people think of you as a person will determine how you will be remembered. If your usage was truly an abberition, people will forgive, but only if they feel you deserve it.  You need to earn people's trust again.  You can't do it with the bat. I hope you can do this, Alex, for you sake and for baseball.  You were the last hope, the person that was going to bring balance to the steroid era.  Instead, you've tipped the scales in the wrong direction.  It's up to you to tip them back again. Good luck.