Now, he's truly a fraud

One of my Sunday morning pleasures during baseball season is Ed Randall's Talking Baseball on WFAN. Today was his first show of the season, and I took no disappointment in the fact that instead of opening the season by chatting with Bob Sheppard - the legendary Yankee PA announcer - he had to talk about how there's no more white knight in baseball.

Yes, the great Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez is now a true Yankee with a steroid history, just like Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi. It's an A-Bomb from A-Rod.

My first reaction was pure gratitude that the trade that nearly brought him to Boston before the 2004 season never happened. We would probably still be pining for our first championship since 1918, and now we'd be dealing with steroid accusations.

But then I thought about how Slappy didn't appear in George Mitchell's report. What if baseball intentionally kept him out in hopes he would wipe the similarly tainted Barry Bonds from the record books? Then, who can say some prominent Red Sox from the great '04 team didn't get similar treatment? Tangentially, if Joe Torre's book implicates some Toronto Blue Jays for using, how will he claim ignorance of A-Fraud's substance abuse?

What a friggin' mess.

Everyone is talking about witch hunts, sadness and courts of public opinions. I feel no remorse for players who cheated the game. The only ones who deserve any sympathy are the fans who spent years thinking they were watching honest athletic contests. They are the only ones who can claim to be defrauded.

Administrative: I know I was late with the huge Slappy news. I had to help family yesterday and was away from the computer. I had thought it would be a safe day to pre-publish. Oops.

Sunday read: If not for Slappy, I could have written a whole post on Jim Salisbury's "A Portrait of Charlie Manuel." It is a must read for any SoxandPhil-er. Some highlights:

• I love Cholly's hat.
• HBO is filming a feature on the manager of the World Champions.
• He only rents in New Jersey: "If I had known I'd be there that long I would have bought a place, but you're always firing me," Manuel says with a laugh to the visitor, a reporter from Philadelphia.
• He likes cooking ribs: "I like to buy a simple sauce and add to it," Manuel says. "Keep tasting it until I like it."
  Like tweaking a team until it's ready to win?
  "Exactly, son," Manuel says.
• There will be no controversy over the ball that recorded the last out of the World Series, as have followed the Red Sox 2004 and 2007 wins: At first, Manuel is loath to talk about the ball.
  "What ball?" he says, feigning ignorance. "I don't know where it is."
  Come on.
  "It's not here," he says.
  Finally, Manuel gives in.
  "I've got the ball," he says. "The ball is mine. Lidge and Ruiz gave it to me. I took that as a great honor."