…The Yankee Years will have to take a back seat.

Grantland Rice, this post ain’t.  But some reactions from soaking up the Arod/steroids coverage on MLB.

-Whew… MLB network signed Bob Costas just in the nick of time.

-Add this to the list of reasons Jeter has kept a polite distance from Rodriguez.

-What was I even doing watching a Met 1991 classic when the network interrupted the game to report this story?

-SI is highly reputable, both in the industry, I trust, and with me personally.  As big a story as this is, and as credible as it may be, how on earth can they run with it with anonymous sources as its basis?  Even if there’s one hundred reliable sources, if they are anonymous how do you go to print?

-“Anonymous” testing in 2003?  Hilarious!  As funny as the leak that hung Giambi out to dry when he made the mistake of telling the truth under oath a few years ago.

-VERY revealing off the cuff nugget from Chad Curtis when he shared the fact that he went to Donald Fehr in 2001 with concerns about the steroids problem and Fehr responded “What steroids problem?  Are they illegal?”   I thought the MLB anchors were going to be catching their breath when they cut back to them, but they didn’t really underscore that part.

-How the devil was Gene Orza to be trusted with information on when unscheduled testing was to take place?  Whether he actually leaked this info to the players, it still seems to be an egregious breach of common sense to have him in the loop in the first place.

-Why was Arod the only name that was conveniently leaked to this reporter?  If I understand correctly, I believe the SI author Selena Roberts said she was doing a story on Arod.  If so, what was the angle of that story?  And if they were not writing a story on Arod, what was the circumstance by which Arod’s name was shared (sought?)… and not the other 103?

-The reveal of the other 103 names would be nice (however unfair to those players who are supposed to be anonymous) because it’d reflect a better cross-section of the guilty parties in the game instead of just those tied to Radomski and everybody’s favorite rape suspect Brian McNamee. (I better credit a source: his accuser, and the detectives who investigated him in the case who think he lied when claiming his innocence.)

-If Arod is indeed guilty, I guess I’ll just have to hope Pujols has been clean because SOMEbody has got to wrest the HR record away from B***s.

-Even Katie Couric doesn’t know how to pronounce the word “asterisk”.  Why is it so difficult?

-Old news, but still funny:  the players union being coerced into any form of testing back in 2003 due to PR reasons, agreeing to a preposterously soft test of an anonymous, non-disciplinary, ANNOUNCED first round that would only prompt actual testing if more than 5% failed that test.  People who were rooting for actual testing threw their hands up in the air that such a laughable proposal was what was put forth.  I remember thinking there’d be maybe one anonymous knucklehead would fail the test and the union would say “See?  No steroids problem” and testing would go away forever.  But it turns out 104 knuckleheads thought they’d be in the clear.  Thank heavens for the can-do-no-wrong mentality of the professional athlete for accidentally prompting a stiffer system.  Fehr must have slapped his own forehead so hard he probably loosened his fillings.