“It’s very sad that a player of his caliber would feel he needs to enhance his performance with the use of drugs,” says Arizona general partner Ken Kendrick of the recent Alex Rodriguez revelations. “I think all of us have a duty in the game to protect the integrity of the game and drugs are a direct onslaught against our integrity.” This message presumably NOT brought to you with ad dollars from 5 Hour Energy, then. From MLB.com’s Steve Gilbert (link culled from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)
“We all look to these guys as our heroes and heroes have responsibilities,” Kendrick said of his message to the team. “And what a hero does is he always does the right thing and he does it all the time. So I talked to them about thinking about what the right thing to do is in every setting and particularly when the temptation to take performance-enhancing drugs is there.
“What you want to do when talking to your players, you just want them to think about the harm drugs can cause both to their bodies and to the game. And you appeal to them on a personal level, that cheating is not the way to succeed in life whether it’s in sports or any other place. Taking drugs is cheating and I don’t like it, and I don’t have any problem saying it.”
Kendrick watched Rodriguez’s news conference on Tuesday with his 13-year-old son.
“My son finally turned to me and he said, ‘Daddy, this guy is stupid,'” Kendrick said. “That probably says it all.”