The Trial of Alex R.

Let’s dispense with the death by a thousand sportswriter cuts business and get right down to indicting A-Rod’s butt:

Would the Reprobate, Alex R., please rise?

Alex R., The Pontificate accuses, convicts, and sentences you for the following High Crimes:

High Crime Count 1: You, the Greatest Player in the Game, took illegal steroids six years ago. Even though the Game didn’t enforce a prohibition against said substances at the time, the Tribunal, nonethless, finds you guilty of cheating. Your offense against the spirit of sportsmanship, furthermore, deserves more draconian punishment than all the other forms of cheating the Game excused, overlooked, and/or condoned over the last century– to wit, throwing spit balls, doctoring its seams, corking bats, stealing signs, using pinetar, ingesting “greenies” or snorting cocaine– because the Pontificate says so.

High Crime– Count 2: You, the Current Active Homerun Leader, have desecrated the holy numbers 714, 755, and *61 and profaned the myth of the eternal, age-independent homerun. (The Pontificate guards these numbers’ sanctity notwithstanding the dramatic reduction in ballparks’ dimensions over the last two decades or the profound changes the games has undergone since We canonized them. )

And it gets better from there. This is Saturday must-reading from The Yankees’ Republic.