How A-Rod Can Save His Image

Chris McGrath / Getty Images Now that he’s fessed up and apologized for using steroids, what does Alex Rodriguez have to do? Stay away from Madonna. Be a great teammate. And a World Series title wouldn’t hurt, either.

Since baseball megastar Alex Rodriguez admitted to using steroids, sports pundits have been speculating about what this means for his career. Loaded terms such as “image” and “reputation” are being been volleyed about.

In the damage-control business, fuzzy concepts like these have very little operational utility. To manage a crisis, seasoned handlers attempt to assess quantifiable marketplace damage, or precisely what must be preserved. “Image” won’t cut it because it’s way too abstract.

We have already factored asinine behavior into the megastar’s stock price—provided he doesn’t commit the one unpardonable American offense: failing to be entertaining.

Crisis management is an economic exercise, not unlike debt restructuring—a reckoning of the proverbial balance sheet in order to determine what kind of leverage the subject can—and cannot—bank on in order to survive. Put more crudely, it’s arithmetic, and the variables on A-Rod’s balance sheet are easy to identify:

A-Rod’s upside, which he’s trying to preserve, includes:

• his $275 million Yankees contract

• his commercial endorsements

• his prospects for getting into the Baseball Hall of Fame

• his family

On the downside, or things to avoid, include:

• losing his entire upside (see above)

• perjuring himself and going to the slammer

When he decided to quickly confirm reports of steroid use, I’m guessing that A-Rod saw the fast-moving alignment of two ominous variables: the impending criminal trial of Barry Bonds for perjury and the grand jury that is reportedly meeting in Washington to consider an indictment of Roger Clemens for lying to Congress.

While A-Rod surely lied to his fans via the news media about his steroid use, he has not yet lied under oath. Given the revolutionary climate on doping, A-Rod and his handlers may have wanted to decisively avoid sliding down that terrible slope. A megastar lying to one’s fans may be despicable, but a megastar landing in Sing Sing is a catastrophe.

If damage control is about pursuing the best of one’s bad options, Team A-Rod’s logic probably went likely this: By admitting prior steroid use now, I can retain my Yankees contract, minimize endorsement losses, stanch further embarrassment to my family, embark upon the likely decades-long campaign of repentance, and maybe, with the variable of time, still find my way into Cooperstown.