Lemme get this straight. A-Rod juiced because he had the burden of carrying around a $252 million contract on his shoulders???? Awwww, poor widdle baby. I’ll tell you what this pin cushion needed: a large, economy-size dose of Vito Corleone slapping him in the face and telling him to man-up.

Every friggin’ time I hear one of these pussies whining about the pressures of the money they’re making — to plaaaaay a sport, by the way, for a cruel and unusual 6 months a year — I wonder if they’d like to step into the well-worn shoes of some single mother who cleans hotel rooms for a living. You know, someone who doesn’t have two nickels to rub together for anything more extravagant than an extra helping of Top Ramen. THAT person knows what money pressure is, my friend, not a guy with a car collection.

But hey, I’ll play along. If A-Rod can’t stand the heat in the $250 million dollar kitchen, I got a very simple solution for him. Yeah, yeah, he doesn’t need it anymore — and regrets having juiced and is all very sorry, blah, blah, blah — cuz he supposedly stopped using when he slipped on the pinstripes. Uh huh. Are you telling me that Yankees fan pressure is less than Rangers fan pressure? That $275 million pressure is easier to take than $250 million pressure? That don’t add up, rocket scientists. I figure the guy has become a human voo doo doll since he’s been in the Bronx, and has probably done more juice than Minute Maid.

Of course, I could be wrong. He could be telling the truth. Yeah, and a monkey is gonna fly outta Jeter’s butt. All I’m sayin’ is that he lied to Tom Hicks (the guy who brought A-Rod to Texas). He lied to Katie Couric, which is like a big “so what,” but I’m trying to establish a pattern here. He fabricated all kinds of crap about the SI reporter, Selena Roberts, the woman that broke this story in the first place. And then you got the Madonna thing, and the stripper thing, and the fact that when a guy hits a weak grounder to the pitcher in a crucial situation in the ALCS and then pathetically tries to slap the ball out of the first baseman’s mitt, he simply can’t be trusted.

But like I said, there is an alternative to steroids for guys like A-Rod who can’t handle all that nasty-wasty pressure. Play for the minimum, fruitcakes. Play for the minimum. Otherwise, shut the hell up about how difficult life is while you’re lounging around one of your 9,000 sq. ft. swimming pools fantasizing about material girls. Or material middle-age women, as the case may be.

Joe