A take on the Alex Rodriguez saga and the Delmon Young addition

Ken Rosenthal said Tony Bosch is not exactly a high-character person on MLB Network Monday and he is right. On the same broadcast, Harold Reynolds said it was the players, though, that brought Bosch into the game and he was right. Rosenthal said no one came off looking good during the "60 Minutes" telecast Sunday night - not Bosch, not Major League Baseball and certainly not Alex Rodriguez - and he was right. If a fan said or I said I can't wait for a day when performance-enhancing drugs are out of the game for good and we can stop talking about them, we'd probably all be right, too. But will that day ever come? There are some people that think MLB has been out to get Rodriguez. My point is he has given them so much to get him on. The "60 Minutes" show said it obtained 500 text messages between Rodriguez and Bosch, messages where Bosch provided Rodriguez great detail in how to cheat. Rodriguez told Mike Francesa on WFAN Radio in New York that he thinks he's done nothing wrong and should be playing baseball in 2014. I would say there is a mountain of evidence that he is in some major denial here or his ego is such that he truly believes he's done nothing wrong. I digress here, but I guess some of those ninth-inning homers he hit against the Orioles over the years still stand, right? Now the Yankees have more money to spend on 2014 player salaries and they actually benefit from this suspension. Bet that sits well with Orioles fans. MLB Network's Brian Kenny posted this on Twitter Sunday night: "Bosch's evidence had 12 guys accept lengthy suspensions. So, he's right about those 12, but he's lying about Arod? Why?" Here is a tweet from new Orioles relief pitcher Ryan Webb last night: "Arod is just sad. MLBPA paid for his defense and now he's suing? He can't actually want to step up to the plate after this can he?" Also keep in mind that some have pointed out that despite his many public denials about PED use and his constant "they are out to get me" type comments, Rodriguez didn't take the stand to defend himself during his arbitration hearing. Is it possible he didn't want to take questions from MLB lawyers about text messages and getting shot up in bathroom stalls? That is my guess. Here is the first paragraph in a story from SI.com's Tom Verducci that kind of sums it up pretty well: "Baseball arbitrator Frederic Horowitz heard a mountain of evidence and came to the same conclusion that has occurred to baseball fans for years: Alex Rodriguez is a serial PED user who fashioned a career upon deceit. Rodriguez was ruined years ago as far as owning a legitimate reputation in baseball. But the decision Saturday by Horowitz, a man hired by both the owners and players to oversee a grievance procedure born from Marvin Miller's wisdom and that has played out favorably to players over the years, is the official proclamation that Rodriguez is a fraud." Wow, that pretty much covers it. Rodriguez just can't seem to admit that he cheated. But he's guilty under the MLB drug program and he's guilty in the court of public opinion and he's forever going to be a disgraced figure when he could've been known as one of the best to ever play the game. That is some fall from grace. On "60 Minutes" Sunday, a lot of people came off looking bad. But the one that will never recover from this and the one that looks the worst by far to me is Rodriguez. It could have been so different for him. O's sign Delmon Young: It was just a minor league contract the O's gave Delmon Young last night, but I'm sure we'll still get the "print the playoff ticket" jokes here. But taken just as a minor league signing and a player they'll take a look at during March in Florida, this was a decent, low-risk pickup. It seems strange that you can get a player once taken first overall in the draft and a player that once finished 10th in the MVP vote on a minor league deal. But that is how the O's got Young. In 2012, he was a regular for the Detroit Tigers - mostly as DH with some outfield starts - and was the American League Championship Series MVP. Young has a career slash line of .303/.341/.471 against left-handed pitching and is a candidate to be at least part of a DH platoon for the Orioles. Danny Valencia's career line against lefties is better at .329/.367/.513, but he was traded in December in the deal that brought outfielder David Lough to the O's.