This weekend was one of extremes. It started with a Sports Illustrated expose that implicated New York Yankees Alex Rodriguez as one of 104 people who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) and ended with an NBA match up between two of the best basketball players in a game that did not disappoint.

A-Rod has been taking body blows to his reputation as a player for the last few years. He was outed at A-Fraud in Joe Torre’s new book. He was known as Jeter’s-Rod for years by New York Yankees teammates and the media. Yankees fans have known him as Choke-Rod for his pennant-ending slumps. Even celebrity news had some fun, as he became Madonna’s-Rod after an apparent torrid affair with the ageless pop diva.

This latest alteration, from A-Rod to A-Roid, is perhaps the most damning blow. For all his personality deficiencies and his career failings, he was going to at least be the player that put Barry Bonds away after hitting home run number 763.

George Mitchell, the man Bud Selig tapped in 2006 to lead the steroid investigation, said that it was time to move forward after the internal investigation was finished. Fans were upset, but MLB was all for it and they went back to selling baseball tickets as if nothing had every happened. This story means baseball must once again address the issue of steroids.

Bud Selig now has to listen to nine more years of pointed questions from sports reporters as Rodriguez amasses enough home runs to be named the best slugger in history. Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez will now be two names mentioned in every discussion of what is wrong with the game. They are egomaniacs with an inability to relate the fans or their teammates. They are also among baseball’s many liars.

If anything, in a political reality where the ineptitude of internal regulation has come to full light, there will be a new call for transparency by fans as baseball’s highest executive officers try and answer the questions and fight any doubt by its fans.

Then the clock struck midnight and all the attention turned the double header on ABC. The last two teams to win NBA championships, the San Antonio Spurs and the Boston Celtics, met in the first game. They were a nice opening act, but the headlining game was between the last two players to score 50 plus at Madison Square Garden, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.

The Los Angeles Lakers handed the Cleveland Cavaliers their first home loss of the season in this 101-91 victory. For the first three quarters the teams moved the ball poetically. It seemed to be basketball at its finest. The individual match up of Bryant and James was a bit of a bust. Bryant only scored 19 points as a flu that has been traveling around the NBA hindered his game. James only made 5 of 20 shots, but managed to play his patented all around game with 12 assists, eight rebounds and a total of 16 points.

The fourth quarter became an after thought as the Lakers continued to counter every big Cavs shot with a bucket of their own. Lamar Odom was by far the best player of the game for the Lakers. He scored a game high 28 points with buckets from the outside, from mid range, and from slam dunks on put backs. Big 7-foot-3 center Zydrunas Ilgauskas was the Cavs got o guy. He hit jumpers from deep and stood his ground in the post for offensive rebound and easy put back points of his own.

The game was a nice end to my carefree Sunday as I then got to look forward to another week of work and another week of reading A-Rod fall out.