Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio?

Going to the candidate's debate.
Laugh about it, shout about it
When you've got to choose
Every way you look at this you lose.

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio,
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
What's that you say, Mrs. Robinson.
Jotting Joe has left and gone away

Paul Simon was an admitted Mickey Mantle fan, but he chose to put in Joe DiMaggio in the lyric for a reason. Forget the fact DiMaggio just falls off the tongue much nicer than Mickey Mantle, Joe D was the last of his kind. Mantle partied, drank, cheated on his wife and was by no means a role model. DiMaggio was faithful to even Ms. Monroe, he was a war veteran, and an overall total class act as far as I'm concerned. We can argue their on field accomplishments all we want, and most likely come to the conclusion that Mantle, with all his faults, was the better player, but today that almost seems irrelevant.

With news that Arod did steroids (as I'm sure you've heard countless times in the last 48 hours) it's safe to say there is now officially a presumptuous steroid blanket over all of baseball. We could pin point the users like Sosa, McGwire, Bonds, etc. but Arod seemed like one of the good ones. He was a bad husband and bad in the postseason, but at least he didn't use steroids. Right? Wrong. We booed Bonds' breaking of Aaron's record but we took solace based on knowing that in the back of our minds we only had to wait a few years for Arod, and his clean record, to take the record back. I would have, probably foolishly, bet anything that Arod didn't use, he clearly had no reason to use, and finding out he did can we assume now that anyone is/was clean? I'm not saying it's right to assume, but at this point I couldn't complain if people started to.

I guess in sports we all want heroes and we want them to be perfect, especially during the rough spots. So I think in light of the Arod mess that Paul Simon was on to something with Joe DiMaggio, he's among the last of our heroes, at least in the sports world. Maybe if he played in another era it would be different. If Jim Bouton played in the 40s on the Yankees and published Ball Four, maybe we'd find out stuff we never would want to know about the Yankee Clipper. The point though is that DiMaggio stayed out of the public's eye, if he played today he wouldn't even have that luxury, but from what I know it's safe to assume he'd still shine through.

Joe DiMaggio was our quiet hero. He played hard, played through injuries, and possibly most importantly, played for that one kid in the upper deck seeing him for the first or last time. It's because of that he became the most popular player, best player, on the best team. Arod has his priorities all wrong. He's the best player on what should be the best team, but all he cares about is being the most popular. I guess I can't speak for the man, but I doubt anyone saw Joe DiMaggio tanning shirtless in Central Park. Alex Rodriguez went after a 50 year old Madonna, almost 20 years his senior, way past her expiration date. DiMaggio married a near prime Monroe, 10 years his junior.

So I'll do my best to answer Paul Simon's question, where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? I'm not entirely sure, but the closest thing I can see right now plays right next to Arod, Derek Jeter. That's pretty fitting now knowing that Jeter stole a DiMaggio sign from the old stadium. In many ways I'd say the Arod Jeter scenario mimics the DiMaggio Mantle one. It may all be for naught considering Mantle carried a Yankee dynasty of his alone, and the fact that Jeter and Arod have played together for more than one season but there are some similarities.

• Jeter was the star of the championship Yankees when Arod came in as the better player, yet Arod changed positions.
• DiMaggio was the star of the Yankees and even though DiMaggio was a shadow of his former self, when Mantle came up he moved to RF
• DiMaggio dated the hotty of the time Marylin Monroe, Jeter dated all the hotties- Jessica Biel, Mariah Carey, Vanessa Minnillo, Miss Universe, Scarlett Johannson.
• DiMaggio's private life was just that, private.
  
• Mantle's vices were all heard in Ball Four.

Yea it's not perfect but it's worth noting/recapping. Today we set ourselves up to be continuously disappointed by our stars. We can't turn our lonely eyes to guys like Arod, Aroid, RoidRod, Roidriguez, or whatever clever roid flavored nickname you have for him, they'll just let us down. If we choose to turn our eyes to someone, we have to carefully choose, and at this point you could do a lot worse than turning to Jeter.

I have long pointed out the faults associated with Jeter, and maybe I have a Jeter hater tag on me, although I'd like to say I'm a Jeter realist. I won't take back anything I've said, and in many instances Jeter is overrated, but times like these you really appreciate the players like Jeter.

Now where does Arod go from here? I have no clue what he'll do. History will tell us that he'll try to make everyone happy and keep his image clean, but everyone would see right through Arod, business as usual. His only out is to come completely clean. Say everything. Tell exactly where he got it, and why he tried it. Tell everyone he has 9 years left on his contract, and that in the next 9 years he'll prove he doesn't need steroids to be the best. He has to pull some sort of Tim Tebow type press conference. We've accepted Giambi and Pettitte's apologies for the most part after they came clean, I'd play that percentage if I was Arod.

What about the Hall of Fame. I'm not going to assume that people will refuse to vote anyone who has gotten caught for steroids, but if they do well then Arod has zero chance. But, I think Barry Bonds was a Hall of Famer before he used, so he deserves to be in the Hall. Arod is the same way. There were 104 positive tests that were supposed to be anonymous. Who's to say that there aren't 10 other potential Hall of Famers in those tests that failed. Those names have to come out, it's not fair that their slates remain clean and Arod's isn't when none of the names should have been made public. Someone messed up big here, and although Arod is deserving of a big hit to his reputation, maybe even a knockout, there are 103 other players who should help take the hit as well.

I really wish Arod didn't use steroids, but I can't say I wish he didn't get caught. I think it's best this did come out because in the end I think more will continue to come out, hopefully the other 103 names. Steroids in baseball hasn't hurt the game yet so I doubt it will now. Making everything known about steroid use in baseball public is the only shot we have at getting some closure, but until then we'll have to turn our lonely eyes to Derek Jeter.