What goes on in New York?   Yankee fans seem to be holding A-Rod responsible for everything ... namely missing the post-season for the first time in so many years.

Sure, A-Rod melts in the clutch like so much ice cream in Central Park on a hot July day.  Sure, he has the personality of a narcisstic ego-driven air-head for opting out of his rich contract earlier in the year just to find out nobody else wanted him for the money except the team he was trying to abandon.  Still, he is the greatest active slugger in the game and eventual home run king.  Isn't that why the Yankees conveted him in the first place?

I was never in favor of the Yankees signing A-Rod or a lot of the other mercenaries they now are saddled with.  Chemistry means a lot in sports and mercenary-type players don't bring good chemistry or Karma.  The Yanks have done diddly since they signed Giambi and the rest of the mercs.

 A-Rod is  the wrong person for New York.  He's the wrong personality to be the highest paid in MLB.  There is a strange cloud over his head and now over the Yankee franchise.  Yanks go nowhere with him.  Get used to it ... you guys are married for 9 more years ... what a marriage made in hell.  Is Hank Steinbrenner the devil?

Several sportscasters have chimed in on comments of Curt Schilling and most of them come to bury him.  I come to praise him.  Schilling has valid points and should be heard regardless of  his verbosity.

Let us take a look at Marion Jones.  Lady MJ offered to return her medals.  She did and someday her career will be rehabilitated to some degree.  Still, not only does the Olympic folks strip cheaters of their medals and records, they also want the medals back from teammates in events such as the relays. 

Cycling and the Tour De France  stripped Floyd Landis.  And, they certainly wanted to do the same for our man Lance.

College football wants to strip Reggie Bush of his Heisman and take away the National Championship of USC in which he was a major factor.  It’s not like they haven’t done it before … How is this situation different from MLB and Clemens?  It may have been Reggie’s parents who cheated.  Still, it is he and USC who will suffer … not to mention his teammates.

So then, to suggest that Clemens be stripped of his many awards is not without merit.  Or, is MLB somehow better than the Olympics and other sports?

An LA Times article compares Clemens to Pete Rose, saying that “we didn’t take anything away “ from him when he was banned.  So how can we consider taking awards and records away from the Rocket?  Well the comparison is faulty.  Peter Rose broke MLB rules as a manager not as a player.  I am one who believes Charlie Hustle should have been let in the hall as a player.  But, in his case there is just too much dark water under the bridge now.

Clemens is every bit the steroid monster that Barry Bonds is and neither one of them deserves to be in the hall or to keep their records after using the juice.  Many sportswriters have already said they will not vote Clemens into the hall unless he brings something substantial to the table in response to the Mitchell Report. 

Now, if his steroid use keeps him out of the hall of fame, how or why does he get to keep his Cy Young Awards after the fact?  Does MLB know something the Olympics does not?