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" A ballplayer&amp;#039;s career effectively ends some time between 36 and 37 years of age. That was when Mickey Mantle hung it up, when Stan Musial played his last good season, when Babe Ruth and Willie Mays started their declines, and when Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs \u2014 arguably the exception that proves the rule. Alex Rodriguez is currently in this window, and hasn&amp;#039;t belted more than thirty home runs in four years. Yet he&amp;#039;s still guaranteed $114 million over the next five seasons regardless of whether he&amp;#039;s worth it, or whether anyone really wants to pay him. Or is he? Apparently, if it can be proven that A-Rod really cheated again like the Miami New Times suggests, then the Yankees will look to void the rest of that deal. It&amp;#039;s not likely to happen, only because no union in America is seemingly as strong as the MLB Players&amp;#039; Association. But if it does, it could set a significant precedent that owners will attempt to use to get out of the inflated contracts they&amp;#039;ve been handing out for years in response to the steroid era. So far the joke is still on the owners, who fought each other tooth and nail to overpay tainted players. It was alleged steroid users like Bonds, and Roger Clemens, and even A-Rod who created the fallacy that ballplayers were well-built to play into their forties now, because of better workouts and diets and supplements. Even after clubs realized that the titanic production was likely a product of juicing, clean guys like Jayson Werth, Joey Votto, and Albert Pujols took advantage with deals that will pay them hundreds of millions combined in their declining years.  Now those deals are disappearing, with expirations on new contracts hovering around 36, and not coincidentally. After losing nearly every labor negotiation against the players since free agency was instated, the owners are looking for a win. And if the Yankees can get out of paying A-Rod, they will. He&amp;#039;s made more money playing baseball than anyone, ever, and his contracts, not his home runs or his stellar play, might end up being his real legacy.  Follow The Culture Blog on RSS and on Twitter at @ESQCulture. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/a18522/alex-rodriguez-anthony-bosch-miami-clinic-15037716/>