A-Rod and Boras partnered up well before A-Rod was out of high school, iirc.

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/rodriguez/profile.html

"Alex's mother worked two to three jobs to support the family. She was a secretary in an immigration office during the day and then waited tables at a local restaurant well into the night.....

At 15, Rodriguez wanted to play for the baseball team at a private school known for turning out great baseball players, but the teen's mother was hard-pressed to come up with the $5,000 tuition.

With the help of a scholarship, his mother scraped together the money..... His baseball skills improved dramatically. He even caught the eye of agent Scott Boras, who saw him play at a tournament in Mexico."

seems to be freshman year, from the context


.......

meanwhile, fwiw:
http://blogs.miaminewtimes.com/riptide/2013/01/the_a-rod_files_every_mention.php

"How did we authenticate the records? New Times called dozens of numbers from client lists and Bosch's personal notebooks. Virtually everyone we spoke with acknowledged their involvement with the clinic or politely declined to comment. There wasn't a single denial. We also spoke to six clients who confirmed that their information -- as recorded in the records -- was accurate. Two former Biogenesis employees described intimate details of the clinic and its business."

I don't understand why anyone still cares about this, on any level. The sport will never be rid of PEDs - indeed, in time there is a great chance that PEDs will be legal again and accepted; see the change in the laws against same-sex marriage or inter-racial marriage -- and nobody has any clue which players who have been anointed 'clean' are actually clean.

I actually feel sad for people whose thought process is so warped that they would still think negatively of a player for using PEDs, or, even worse, would think that they have the faintest notion which players presumed clean are actually clean.

We have had testing for a decade, and now get hit with this 'bombshell.'

You're going to compare Barry Bonds' right to take norbolethone to Loving?

A quick lesson in legalization campaign efforts: don't be histrionic. If you want to use a sympathetic comparison, try the prohibition of alcohol or marijuana. Neither is heroin or meth or anywhere near it, and people can understand that. People can understand that testosterone creams and hGH are different animals than liver rotting, stacked up, unregulated steroid usage once you explain it to them.

We've had testing for a decade, and now players are using creams and hgh and not stacking deca-durabolin with winstrol and turning their livers into rubbish. By most popular estimates, doping is *way* down. If you want to argue that science marches on and that we've started to learn to harness synthetic hormones in a relatively harmless fashion that could be hugely beneficial to athletes provided it's regulated under strict doctor's care (like, say, the way alcohol is legal and regulated)... I think there's a really interest, helpful conversation that could happen there.

But for crissakes, don't compare a fundamental right like marriage to any of doping so you can get ahead in your athletic career. People will become dismissive because it's a prima facie inapposite comparison to all but the most extreme proponent of individualism.

In defense of histrionics (I'm using that word a lot today), the initial reaction to those comparisons are bad (and thus are probably a poor comparison to make), but both same-sex marriage and interracial marriage had this history of "They're 'wrong' and illegal, but no one can make a rational argument why."

Of course, one issue deals with choices made to work in one's chosen profession, which is pretty important, but the other deals with fundamentals of human rights and characteristics of human existence, so there's a lot of difference there.

Sports aren't about risking your health to win

Isn't is EXACTLY that? It's certainly risking pain to win. You don't think the act of throwing a baseball as fast as you possibly can, for 100 times a game isn't risking your health? You don't think standing in the box against a 90 mph fastball is risking your health? You don't think scaling a wall or diving for a sinking liner or sliding into second or turning a double play isn't risking your health?

I may be showing my age, but everyone saluted Kerri Strug for winning a gold medal while risking the long term health of her ankle.

Boo hoo on the notion of needing to risk your health to succeed in a job. Many jobs are like that. Every job has advantages and disadvantages. If athletes don't like it, they can either try to succeed naturally or find a new job.

(Presuming that PEDs are actually performance-enhancing, which is conventional wisdom I don't accept.)

[56] Also assuming that PED usage is risky to one's health.

Right, that too, especially when taken safely - which admittedly is made more difficult by the laws against these drugs and the demonization of athletes who use them. Who are athletes getting the drugs from? Not from some reputable doctor but from gym rats and trainers with mill degrees and sketchy doctors/companies who are trying to stay out of the cross hairs of law enforcement.

One would think that people concerned about the safety of athletes would consider this.

If baseball is going to continue to clean up its sport, something it has done mightily over the last decade, the government has to continue to go after Bosch and his clinic and his “patients.”

That is one strange piece of if-then logic. If Walt Davis is ever going to learn how to handle his own finances, the government has to continue to go after Wall Street crooks.

Also, according to the very same New Times article, it's not at all clear that Bosch has violated any laws. Doctors are allowed to prescribe medicine for off-label use. If the doctor is egregious enough in abusing that privilege, law enforcement might take notice. But they have generally been looking the other way on these anti-aging clinics. I have no desire to protect doctors who are feeding drug habits by carelessly handing out roids, painkillers, stimulants, etc. but if the government is going to ignore it when it comes to middle-aged folks who want a boost, I don't want them stepping in to protect the precious sanctity of baseball.

Now, if for some silly reason, this is the controversy that pushes the government to seriously regulate crap like this (and the supplements industry and "alternative medicine" and such) then, sure, society might be better off.

Meanwhile, did they ever catch the Tylenol tamperer who's responsible for everything having 39 seals on it?

Meanwhile, did they ever catch the Tylenol tamperer who's responsible for everything having 39 seals on it?

Nope.

If you believe certain wackier sectors of the internet, Unabomber Teddy K. was responsible for THAT too, along with being the Zodiac killer, murdering Valerie Percy (another famous Chicago crime of yesteryear, of course), and 8 zillion other things that would even make a Hollywood screenwriter go "Nah, too over-the-top".

On the subject of Chicago area crimes, I want to find out who the Max Headroom video pirates were. Wonder if the statute of limitations has run out on that - love to hear the backstory on that one day.

#52, what I am thinking is more along the lines of: society will evolve, and in time the general public using things like HGH (er, if it ever starts to work) or anti-aging creams or any substance that is shown to improve health and increase lifespan will occur, and at that point it starts to be difficult to keep these kinds of things banned within the sports.

Also, the general hysteria will have long worn off by that point. We may be seeing more people care less as it is, as stories like these continue to break and people gravitate towards a general disinterest in the topic.

I may be showing my age, but everyone saluted Kerri Strug for winning a gold medal while risking the long term health of her ankle.

Oh come on, it wasn't THAT long ago.

But now, with this story, the franchise and its 2009 championship are smeared by Rodriguez’s connection to PEDs.

Didn't eight players on the Yankees' 2000 postseason roster show up in the Mitchell Report? Does anyone really believe that team's championship has been smeared?