Watching SportsCenter this morning I couldn’t get over the coverage of Alex Rodriguez and his quest for home run number 600 and started wondering if anyone aside from ESPN and New York Yankee fans care.

Now it’s not the milestone that I have a problem with, 600 home runs is quiet the accomplishment, it’s the fact that A-Rod is an admitted steroid user and ESPN is glorifying the exact record that has put such a dark cloud over the game of baseball.

On Monday night ESPN was showing the game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Detroit Tigers.  In this game Matt Garza for the Rays and Max Scherzer for the Tigers were each throwing no hitters into the sixth inning and ESPN cut away to show an A-Rod at-bat.  A dueling no-hitter, which ended with Garza taking it the distance, is far more interesting than Rodriguez hitting a ultimately meaningless home run.

Regardless of how many home runs he ends up with they are tainted.  Just like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Roger Clemens and Manny Ramirez everything A-Rod does should be taken with a giant asterisk.

He cheated and he said so, yet the media doesn’t seem to care.  During SportsCenter this morning, they showed every one of A-Rods at bats during last nights game with the Cleveland Indians, even teasing that a long fly ball could get out only to joke that if it did it would have been much higher in the show.

What I can’t understand is why we care so much.  Is it just that, as old ad says “chicks dig the long ball” and home runs are still sexy to watch?  When Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s All Time home run record, there was outrage because of the steroid allegations fueled by the size of his head.

Tony Massarotti wrote a piece in the Boston Globe today comparing the accomplishment of 600 home runs during the steroid era as compared to before and explains why 600 home runs doesn’t add up anymore.  While i agree that overall most fans don’t care, my does ESPN?  Should they cover it? Of course.  Should they be cutting away from no hitters for a meaningless at-bat? No.

I will give A-Rod credit for getting the steroid talk that should be surrounding him to disappear.  When his positive tests came out, he went the Letterman route and did a candid interview with Peter Gammons.  Despite the fact he was on the record saying he had never taken steroids or any other performance enhancing drugs, no one seems to care anymore that he lied and cheated.

Unlike Bonds, McGwire and others who ignored the allegations and allowed them to run rampant, A-Rod addressed them and magically they went away.

I don’t know why ESPN is hyping it up like they are and I’m sure when he finally hits it they will have multiple segments and praise, but we will have to wait until he does to find out how crazy they will get.