I Injected A-Rod. (Chances Are, So Did You.)

One of the things we hold sacred in our household is the family dinner, when Baby, The Girl, The Girl II, and I sit down at the same table at the same time and share a meal - a meal fully prepared by Baby, mind you; not some food-like substance served in a paper bag and shot through a small window...straight into our hearts.

And while our schedules might preclude us from dining as one every night, we do it as often as possible. Not only does it allow us to partake in the culinary joy that Baby brings whenever she cooks, family dinner is when we get to look at each other, laugh together, and hear about everyone's day. Oh, and we check all cell phones at the door. To the best of my knowledge, Miss Manners has not updated the setting chart to replace the demitasse spoon with the I-Phone.

The family dinner is also when Baby and I discuss current events with The Girls. My particular areas of expertise are politics (domestic), music, technology, and Hollywood (non-TMZ). For the record, Baby leads talks about politics (foreign), community news, health, and Hollywood (TMZ); we share the pop-culture responsibilities (Baby's wheelhouse is movie quotes and mine is commercial jingles). We also share the sports duties, as Baby has some game when it comes to games.

So when the Sports Illustrated story broke about how New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez had used performance-enhancing drugs while playing for the Texas Rangers, and when A-Rod first admitted to that use, we knew the issue would be broached over chicken. But given the fact that we both lead sports discussions, we were forced to invoke a series of tiebreakers to determine who would chair the discussion with the children. Ultimately, my ability to put modern baseball into historic context crushed Baby's skill at despising anyone in baseball who isn't Derek Jeter.

The subject hasn't come up yet - American Idol, 7th grade social studies, and the stimulus package have been the pressing subjects of late - but when it does, this is what I plan to tell my daughters:

Girls, you may have read in the papers or watched on the news the story of Alex Rodriguez, also known as A-Rod...or, as Mommy calls him, Not Derek Jeter...and his admission that he took performance-enhancing drugs while being paid more money to play baseball for one year than some players will see in their entire careers. There are numerous issues here, from the risks A-Rod may have taken with his own health to what the law says about the drugs he used. But the core issue is the fact that A-Rod cheated.

How did A-Rod cheat? Well, the drugs he took make athletes stronger, and they were banned by Major League Baseball in 1991. In fact, they helped Not-Derek-Jeter perform so much better, he won the league MVP award in 2003. So, while most other players were trying their best with what their God gave them, A-Rod was doing his best with what his dealer gave him.

Please pass the cranberry sauce.

Is A-Rod at fault? Of course he is. He took the drugs. The drug people are at fault, too. And so is the Player's Union for fighting against mandatory drug testing, which gave players like him the sense of security that they wouldn't be caught; and so is Major League Baseball for not fighting hard enough to implement mandatory drug testing. But someone else is at fault as well.

I am.

So is Mommy.

So are our friends, their significant others, their cubicle neighbors at work, their doctors and mechanics and hairdressers, and the millions of other baseball fans around the country and around the world. Don't look nervous, Girls. Mommy and Daddy aren't going to jail, nor will we be interviewed by Katie Couric. It isn't as if we stood in line and waited our turn to actually inject him. But we may have driven him to it.

Get your elbows off the table.

After baseball's work stoppage in 1994, we were down on the sport. Millionaires and billionaires went to war over money and left us, its devoted fans, on the field of battle as nothing more than collateral damage. We didn't even get a World Series that year.

But in 1998, the "Home Run Chase" (I'll make air-quotes here) between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa brought us back. Roger Maris' record of 61 home runs in a single season had lasted 37 years until these two giants started crushing home runs and making it clear by the all-star break that the question was not if the record would fall, but to whom and by how much. Not only did McGwire finally set the record at 70, Sosa topped Maris as well, finishing with 66.

More corn?

At that point, we were hooked. Before 1998, home runs were fun. After 1998, home runs were mandatory - and they had to be majestic moon-shots that we would never forget until the next moon-shot was more majestic still. And it didn't matter if the game was on the line; in fact, a crushing blast deep into the night at Fenway, to make the score 10-0, was grander to us than the 2-1 game-winner that barely cleared the fence at Corporate Sponsor Park. God bless baseball, we cried. God bless baseball, and home runs, and America, and SportsCenter, and TiVo.

Were there hints that cheating was going on then? Of course there were hints, but we ignored them. We were in blissful love with the long-ball, that singular epic sports feat with a size worthy to take its place in our lives alongside our big houses and our big SUVs, and we didn't care how we got the long-ball, as long as we got it. Feed us the sausage, we demanded. We don't care how the sausage is made.

Use your napkin, not your pants.

And this obsession with home runs was not reserved just for the field of play. Actual home run balls, balls that once were cherished childhood souvenirs to pass down to future generations, became the cause of fisticuffs, lawsuits, and multi-million dollar auctions.

Then along came Barry.

Barry Bonds, he of the San Francisco Giants, would go on to capture the two most storied records in all of sport: in 2001, he hit 73 home runs, beating McGwire's short-lived mark; and in 2007, he surpassed Hank Aaron's decades-old record of 755 career home runs, ultimately coming to rest at 762. What's funny is that in the years between Bonds' 73 and 762, more and more attention was paid to performance-enhancing drugs, and the cloud of suspicion that grew around Bonds - he had never hit anywhere near 73 homers before 2001 or since - made him the poster child for alleged performance enhancement.

Still, we didn't care. We loved the home run so much, Bonds became our Home Run Mistress. We wouldn't admit to our family or friends our feelings for him, but oh, the things he did to us in the privacy of our homes.

Oops. Sorry. Poor analogy. Someday Mommy will explain what "mistress" means.

So although we cried foul in public, in private we marveled at what one man with one stick could do to one ball.

And this is why we are partially to blame for A-Rod's current situation. Not only did we fall in love with the long-ball, we fell in love with the long-ball hitters, and unless a player's name was something like Jeter or Ichiro or Ripken - true but rare baseball men respected for their overall skill and heart for the game - he was either a Home Run Hero or a Guy Named Moe. If he was the former, he reaped glory, riches, and great tables at all the best restaurants; if he was the latter, he went about his average game and retired to go into a career as a middle-manager with some investment company. A-Rod, for all of his natural skill, for all of his raw potential, was too aloof to be a Jeter and too wealthy to be a Moe. That left him little choice.

We left him little choice. If you think resisting the peer pressure of the Queen Bee at school is tough, and while it's no excuse, think about the pressure brought forth by the adulation of millions. A-Rod may have taken the needle, but the fans all but pushed the plunger.

Now, which one of you has dish duty?