Sincerity Is For The Weak! Maybe.

Athletes are proud people. We know this. Half of their job is to be so mentally tough that they are almost delusional. The greats can't even FATHOM losing a game. The can't allow themselves to sit around in consternation like a fan.

So why am I disgusted with the A-Rod semi-apology? I know that he's a proud athlete with a gigantic ego who isn't used to saying sorry for anything. Yet I wasn't anywhere near placated yesterday when I heard him.

He did what he was supposed to do, he gave some extra details as to what happened in 2003 and who he was with (some nameless cousin). He called himself young and stupid and apologized for his mistake. Sort of.

Yet, as Jayson Stark points out, A-Rod made the situation even murkier with his apology. He contradicted himself in front of everyone and shot all sorts of holes in his earlier apology with Peter Gammons.

That's what makes me angry about this situation. A-Rod is either really stupid, or, more likely, he thinks we're really stupid. He said he was about five years younger than he really was when he used steroids. He said he was injected with some unknown substance from out of the country (even though he told Gammons he walked down to GNC to get his stuff), and then later said he know he wasn't "popping Tic-Tacs" which is why he was secretive about doing this.

First of all, am I to believe that a guy as aware of his body as A-Rod is would inject some unkown substance into his body for years without wondering what it was? Secondly, who the hell injects themselves with Tic-Tacs?

A-Rod clearly isn't telling truth and was hoping that the act of apologizing was enough without actually letting us know what he's sorry for. Kind of like a Jason Giambi special.

We shouldn't be surprised with A-Rod's insincerity. Of all the athlete apologies we've heard over the past decade, I can count on one hand how many athletes apologized sincerely. I can remember Andy Pettitte last year, Todd Bertuzzi when he nearly killed a guy on the ice, and I'll hold an open slot for whomever I forgot (feel free to add any in the comments section).

On the other hand you have baseball players who avoid saying they did anything wrong and you have guys like Ryan Leaf who apologize as though it's the media's fault for bringing it up.

I don't want an apology if you don't mean it. It's selfish spin-control, not remorse. I'd rather have Dominic Raiola, who would rather have people dislike them. At least you know where they're coming from.

Like most fans, I wish A-Rod would just admit what he did. It would have taken one minute and it would completely short-circuit any media follow up because there would be nothing else to uncover. Instead this issue will fester and A-Rod won't get what he wanted, which I assume is closure.

And he doesn't deserve closure because his apology was the equivalent of a player not running out a pop fly. He made a mistake back in 2003. Now he's made another one.

Welcome to club "sports apology without responsibility" A-Rod. Be careful, it's crowded in there.

What Up With February?

Apparently February marks the point when sports news reaches ludicrous speed. I know it's a slow month, but that doesn't mean IQ's should just be dropping left and right.

Let's just review the top sports stories of the past few days:

A-Rod: We all know A-Rod had some illegal substances coursing through his Madonna loving body in the early part of this decade. He apologized...sort of....and now we can wait until spring training to hear every Yankee refer to the media as "you people" and explain how all of the steroids coverage is a secret ploy to tear the team apart.

And I was okay with that.

But noooooooo. Bud Selig had to step in and suddenly climb onto his 18.5 million dollar high horse to tell us exactly how wrong A-Rod was to do steroids. Selig said "while Alex deserves credit for publicly confronting the issue, there is no valid excuse for using such substances, and those who use them have shamed the game."

Thanks, Bud. I'm glad you managed to expurgate the story so that baseball doesn't look so bad. No need to mention the fact that the only reason A-Rod apologized is because his name was leaked and that the biggest reason for steroids being an issue in the sport is through an act of Congress. If you had simply cracked down on illegal substances about, oh, a decade ago, this wouldn't be such a black eye. But that would have taken away some of that cash inflow and forced you to confront the players union.

I think it's best if Bud plays the silent game from here on out until he's ready for action.

Phelps and his Greens: So Phelps gets caught hitting the bong on camera and is now losing his endorsements left and right. I already discussed this point on Sports Pants and figured that's the last I'd ever hear of it. Phelps rocks the ganja, loses lots of money, serves a suspension, and then goes on with his life.

Now word out of the Carolina that is South is that arrests are being made. Those evil kids that had their face in the bong are being taken off the street lest they destroy the moral fabric of our society. Funny thing is, the police seemed to only be interested in Phelps. According to the defense attorney for one of the arrested kids, "

After they arrested him, they didn't ask him, 'Where did you get the marijuana?' or 'Who sold it to you?' Almost all the questions they asked him were about Michael Phelps."

Apparently Sheriff Leon Lott who clearly sees some dollar signs or maybe some He-Man type power in his future, has decided Phelps is his golden goose. Once those pictures came out with Phelps, I bet Lott skipped down the street singing "I've got a golden ticket". Now he's using his moral stance to hunt down Phelps, who I'm sure is hiding in Argentina right now, and bring him to the mercy of the court. All for the good of America, damnit.

Spitting is preferred: Roberto Alomar...WTF? Did this guy watch Team America and took the "Everyone Has AIDS" song too seriously? He claims that the woman accusing him of having unprotected sex with her while knowing he had full blown AIDS is a crazy liar. I really hope she is because if he actually did that....WTF!!!??? He will have gone from a surly baseball player to a full blown psychopath with full blown AIDS. That is no way to go through life, son.

February is slow in sports, but these stories aren't due to a bored press. They're due to asshats. Can't these guys just enjoy counting their money during this recession? Sheesh.

A-Rod Does Europe or Somesuch

There's a big deal going down in European soccer. A young stud player from AC Milan named Kaka (you should probably put the accent on the second "ka") has received a mind-numbing offer to switch teams.

Manchester City is offering up $145 million over 4 years in order to have Kaka's services. For those of you counting at home, that averages out to $37 million a season, which easily doubles what Kaka makes right now.

This is an unprecedented deal. According to Sports Illustrated, the next closest deal to compare it to is the $65 million deal Real Madrid gave to the butting head of Zinedine Zidane more than 7 years ago.

So why in name of Copa Mundials would Manchester City drop such a bucket load of cash for this guy? Apparently George Steinbrenner has gone Middle Eastern on us. Manchester City is owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Excuse me, I need to rest my fingers after typing that name....

Sheikh is one of the wealthiest men in the world and money is no object for him to make his team successful. NOW. The teams hasn't won any sort of title since the 1970's so it's safe to say they don't have a winning atmosphere in the clubhouse. Manchester City officials also say that since Kaka is only 26 years old, he fits in to the long term plans with the team.

But mostly it's about winning. NOW.

This episode reminds me of a different time. It was a more innocent America. Most people thought Osama bin Laden was a drink size at Starbucks and Brittany Spears was the hot pop star with big boobs as opposed to the crazy chick with a shaved head and two kids.

New baseball owner Tom Hicks was going to take his Texas Rangers team to the World Series just like he had taken the Dallas Stars to the Stanley Cup. He had the money and he was going to show every other owner what he had in had pants.

But Hicks was not a patient man. There was to be no growing a solid farm system of young baseball players. Hicks did not have time for this crap! It was time to win! NOW!

General Manager Doug Melvin didn't agree with this and had the audacity to tell Hicks that the Rangers needed to stockpile young talent before they could make a run at any sort of championship. Damn it! Hicks didn't need to wait! He had money!

Out went Melvin and his vast baseball knowledge. In came John Hart and his lackluster commitment to the team. He told Hicks exactly what the owner wanted to hear. "Build a team? Hell, we can make a few big signings, trade away our farm system for names and we'll be in the World Series! Now excuse me, I'm going to go play some golf."

The Rangers needed some talent, so Hicks did the only thing a crazy and impatient owner could do: He went and signed the best young player in baseball to the single most retarded contract ever seen in the sport.

Alex Rodriguez got a 10 year $225 million contract. Jaws dropped. Pants were soiled. It got Hicks the media attention for his team and put a big target on his head for super agent and proclaimed baseball anti-Christ, Scott Boras.

Hicks explained that the contract given to A-Rod was an investment. Yes, the contract was by far bigger than anything else baseball had even sniffed, but A-Rod was young and would be good for a long time. He would bring media attention to the attention-starved Rangers and team would get that money back with championships and advertising.

Then Hicks discovered several things:

1.) A-Rod is an arrogant jackass who has every baseball measurable imaginable but very few intagibles such as leadership skills or honesty.

2.) John Hart had more interest in his bank account than studying up on players.

3.) Pitcher Chan Ho Park was a really, really, REALLY bad free agent signing. So was crack-head Ken Caminetti, so was 193 year old Andres Galarraga.

4.) The Rangers were not the up and coming winners Hicks and envisioned. In fact, they were becoming the laughingstock of the league thanks in most part to the gigantor contract handed to one Alex Rodriguez that netted the team several last place finishes.

So what does Hicks do? He trades away everyone at an extreme discount, refuses to ever deal with Scott Boras again and turns into a hermit tightwad who distrusts and lies to the media. The Rangers are still a laughingstock and are currently rebuilding plan number 9 and still have no pitching.

Meanwhile A-Rod has moved on to have statistic success with the New York Yankees but in the process has become the most despised player in the league. And you can trace it all back to the contract.

I'm not saying the Kaka signing will fail so spectacularly or that he will end up dating a crazy-ass aging pop-star who is twice his age while denying they are together the entire time.

I'm also not saying that if the signing doesn't work out, that the Sheikh...person will become an Obi Wan Kanobi like hermit who wanders the baseball desert like Tom Hicks does.

But it's always dangerous to pin the hopes of a franchise on one player. If it doesn't work out, we might end up removing that accent from the end of Kaka's name after all.