Mad Dog Russo’s Yankees steroid rant after Cashman comments is amazing

New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman set the tone for the 2022 season on Thursday, and that tone? Was a high-pitched whine.

CashGod went on record (again) with The Athletic to say he believes he deserves somewhat of a free pass for not getting the Yankees to the World Series since 2009 because the Astros are on record as cheating in 2017.

Never mind all the other years. Never mind the Yankees’ three runs scored in four road games that series. Never mind that there’s some sort of “Yankees Letter” waiting in the wings that’ll be unsealed soon and could undermine the legitimacy of Cashman’s statements further.

Nope! Now was the time to grab the megaphone and complain about how unfair it is to be judged for a slightly tainted failure, while also surrounded by nearly two uninterrupted decades of untainted failure.

You know who’d heard enough of this? Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, New York sports radio legend of the ’90s and current screaming talking head on both MLB Network and ESPN. Why is there a sudden Russossaince? Who knows? And why are we to question it?

As “Mad Dog” so loudly (and eloquently) put it, who are the Yankees to cry about cheating? Their ’09 team was powered by A-Rod and their dynasty was powered by “protein shakes”.

Mad Dog Russo called the 2000s Yankees a ‘pharmacy’

Outside of the A-Rod Christmas Tree non-sequitur, it’s hard to deny any of these charges. Just because it was a more widespread and acceptable form of cheating, in retrospect, does not mean other teams can’t put asterisks on the Yankees’ titles in the same manner, if they so choose. Billy Beane’s not squealing to The Athletic about how he actually won an AL Pennant in 2001 if you think about it, though, so … yeah.

Rodriguez being the engine behind the ’09 team after steroids had already been (partially) eradicated from the game is probably more glaring than the entire ’00 team chugging creatine, but you know what? Both points in Mad Dog’s rant are completely valid. And Cashman’s been unable to capture a ring without a premier steroid user on the roster, so what does that say?

All in all, don’t throw stones from inside a glass house, especially if that house is built on a foundation of needles and might just have a Yankee Letter nailed to the door like Martin Luther’s 95 Theses.

This is not to excuse the Astros, of course. They’re still an embarrassment. But if Marwin Gonzalez is about to make your Opening Day roster, it might be best to let it go.

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