What's the difference?

Player One is 30 years old, one of the best players in his sport, is on pace to set all sorts of his sports records and plays for the most well known franchise his league has.

Player Two is 33 years old, one of the best players in his sport, is on pace to set all sorts of his sports records and plays for the most well known franchise his league has.

Player One hit a rough patch in his life, lost public support, but recovered and now is universally loved by his sport’s fan.

Player Two is now in a rough patch in his life, has lost public all supports, and is now wondering if he’ll ever be universally loved by his sport’s fan.

Player One is Kobe Bryant, the star shooting guard of the Los Angeles Lakers. In the summer of 2003, he faced criminal charges for sexual assault, supposedly having intercourse with a female hotel employee without her consent. Kobe’s sponsors left him, his team’s fans (and many of his teammates) wanted him out of town, and it appeared the league’s best player was going to spend the final decade of his career in a Colorado penitentiary. Instead, the victim dropped the court charges, Kobe went back to playing basketball in LA, and five-and-a-half years later, he is the reigning NBA MVP, the best clutch scorer in the sport and leads all players in jersey sales on NBA.com.

Player Two is Alex Rodriguez, the star third basemen of the New York Yankees. Considered by many to be the best player of his generation, A-Rod is an unbelievable hitter and fielder, and is on pace to smash Barry Bonds’ all-time home run record. (In my book, it’s actually still Hank Aaron’s record, but that is a topic for a different blog post.) For a long time, Rodriguez was considered the shinny gem in a pit full of dirty pebbles, the one clean and pure superstar of baseball who would re-write the record books with numbers not aided by performance enhancing drugs. To many, he was the last great hope.

Then last week, the shoe dropped on A-Rod. Sports Illustrated reported that they found results from a thought-to-be confidential drug test taken in 2001 that proved that Rodriguez had been found guilty of using Human Growth Hormones. The report stated that between ’01 and 2003, when Rodriguez was a member of the Texas Rangers, he had juiced up. Faster than an A-Rod home run leaving the park, the media storm pounced on Rodriguez. Some columnists said that with this news, Major League Baseball should just erase all the numbers from the 1990’s and 2000’s. Others said A-Rod should be suspended for part of the upcoming season. Even after Rodriguez admitted wrongdoing and apologized, the chance of him hearing anything other then “A-ROID, A-ROID” when he step up to the plate in Fenway Park next season are slim to none.

That leads to the big questions: Will Rodriguez get the same treatment as Bryant did? In a few seasons, will fans forgive the Yankees star like they did the Lakers star if A-Rod continues to put up big numbers? Can we still pencil Rodriguez in for the starting third basement of the AL All-Star team next July? Nobody knows the answers to any of these questions, and there are probably 50 more that could be asked without a valid response. But A-Rod should take note that in the span of five years, Bryant went from enemy #1 to hero. I’m not saying Rodriguez will do the same, but it’s not impossible.