Sorry seems to be the hardest word

By on February 9th, 2009 In Hype!

A-Rod in TexasAlex Rodriguez admitted today that he took anabolic steroids during the three years he was a member of the Texas Rangers and apologized, saying among other things “I was young, I was stupid, I was naive and I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth.” Oh how the mighty have fallen. A-Rod is a much more beloved player than previous ‘roid users Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, so this news strikes a little harder at the world of baseball. But it’s also set apart from the other scandals by how A-Rod handled the situation today. The news broke over the weekend in Sports Illustrated, and this morning the power-hitting superstar publicly apologized in an interview with ESPN’s Peter Gammons.

This is a far cry from the congressional finger wagging of accused steroid user Rafael Palmiero and the unapologetic Roger Clemens. It’s also nothing like the circus created by home run king Barry Bonds. The question is, will A-Rod’s mea culpa give fans a reason to let him off the hook?

Hundreds of sports fans are chiming in on the Sports Illustrated blog, and the results are mixed. That some fans want to forgive A-Rod is itself a far cry from the hatred spewed by fans about Bonds and others. An early ESPN poll has a larger percentage of fans saying they forgive A-Rod than not! I think this says a couple of things — one, that fans are more willing to forgive a player they like and two, that apologizing early on does help. Nevertheless, allegations have long swirled about A-Rod and steroids, and as the SI article points out he flatly denied it during a 2007 interview with Katie Couric.

From a purely PR perspective, I think A-Rod has done the best he could under the circumstances. It’s not surprising he lied before getting caught given then amount of money it would have cost him in future earnings. And now that he has been caught, at least he’s coming clean (as it were). Should be an interesting story to watch over the next few weeks.

Comments

Dan Wool Says:
February 9th, 2009 at 4:01 pm

Honesty…is such a lonely word… ;)

And because Rodriguez came clean, this will be gone quickly.

Linda VandeVrede Says:
February 10th, 2009 at 11:08 am

Apologizing early on helps, for sure. Also, demeanor throughout is key, don’t you think? Barry Bonds was also so arrogant and atagonistic, where A-Rod was much less combative throughout, so it makes one more likely to forgive him. If you get too high on your horse, people always want to bring you down harder.

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