The Alex Rodriguez perp walk came and went without incident, a well-controlled 35-minute goat-rope that advanced his newly developed image as America's Penitent.
His next hurdle, though, is not whether he can convince the Sincerity Police, or whether he can make his teammates overcome their already well-established reservations toward him, or whether he can still satisfy the fantasy geektroids.
It's whether he can keep us from becoming sick to death of the sight, sound and mention of him.
Not disgusted; that's another issue entirely, and one you'll have to deal with yourselves. No, we're talking about what is rapidly becoming known as Favre Syndrome -- the reflexive revulsion of the sound of someone's name, voice or presence, or the introduction of same by another party.
Rodriguez is about there now, and he is about to get full-blown Favre because he didn't finish the job he has tried to tackle in the past two weeks. He left openings for people to flog his name into a flat gray paste, to the point where his name, like Favre's or LeBron James' or Terrell Owens, will come up on every slow news day, just because.
A lot of this is determined by the 24/7 news cycle, but a lot more is determined by one of the most pernicious elements of the 24/7 -- the almost junkie-like reliance on a few big names discussed over and over and over again whether or not they've actually done something in the last day or two to merit that discussion.
I mean, Favre has done nothing whatsoever in the last two weeks except say he isn't playing any more, and yet he is still being media-flogged to the point of national nausea.
And now, with Rodriguez's latest choreographed mea maxima culpa, Rodriguez is there, too. You hear his name, and you try to duck your head inside your jacket, and it will get worse as the new holes in his story are passed and crowbarred apart.
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| Thirty-five minutes? That's not enough for A-Rod to elaborate on 'roids. (US Presswire) |
It's great excuse when you're 10, but 10-year-olds never talk about how young and stupid they are. By the time you're 24, you don't get to haul that one out any more. But he will, largely because he thinks it's better than the alternative, which is "I was young, I did what everyone else did, and I wanted to be better than me." True that is idiocy, but it's also cynicism and condescension. And Rodriguez isn't good enough at either to make it seem like anything else.
But that's only part of the syndrome. The other part is how often we keep hearing about his spring training, down to the last fast-muscle twitch. And we will, because today's news conference left more questions behind because it was managed. He might have saved himself if he had taken follow-ups, if he had answered every question no matter how trivial or dull-witted, and stayed there for as many hours as it took.
Why? Two reasons. One, if you're trying to throw yourself on the mercy of the court, you have to stay for as long as the court wants you. Two, if you want there to be no more questions, answer all of them at the time, or pay the price for deferred maintenance.
Conversely, the best way to keep your name in the news well beyond its shelf-life is to limit your availability. Beating the media means giving the media more than it can eat at one sitting, and yes, there really is such a thing.
He didn't, because he either didn't want to or because he was advised not to. He thought 35 minutes was enough treatment for Favre Syndrome, and it isn't nearly enough. And now it may be too late.
Ray Ratto is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle.
