They can turn even a Texas Ranger into an MVP.

But the impact of Alex Rodriguez's outing will be far more sweeping. The last honest man isn't that, and the stain that has spread over Baseball has now saturated the cowhide. Every home run and every pitch of this era will now come with an asterisk, and this is far from over.

As Rodriguez chases Bonds.

The stain is complete for Rodriguez, too. He's now a five-tool jerk.

His image already had taken a hit on nearly every front, and Torre's "A-Fraud" disclosure, as innocent as he says it was, summed up a general perception. Rodriguez wasn't Derek Jeter, and he failed in the clutch, and, worse, he hung with Madonna.

All that saved Rodriguez was a clean status, andmaybe that's what did him in. Maybe someone got tired of the A-Fraud hypocrisy. After all, the 2003 testing was a survey that was supposed to be secret.

Rodriguez didn't deny when confronted by Sports Illustrated, which goes against the others. He instead chose to refer all questions to "the union."

Maybe he knew his reaction didn't matter. Even if he is innocent, would anyone believe him after all of the flaxseed oil, greens-fee receipt excuses?

If Rodriguez did what Sports Illustrated reports, his best explanation is the one that no one else has offered yet.

It is simply this: Rodriguez was part of the times.

With Bud Selig and the union looking the other way, the players did what players do. They competed. They saw others getting better with the use of syringes, and they figured, well, it's the cost of doing business.

Those who didn't inject put themselves at a disadvantage, and the same numbers that seem so meaningless in record books give undeniable meaning to the power of steroids. Five of the top dozen home-run hitters in Baseball history come from this chemically enhanced era.

As a San Francisco columnist recently wrote, "The players universally believed that everything was cool, that Major League Baseball wasn't at all interested in enforcement (and it wasn't), that they could get away with any foray into the world of performance-enhancing drugs, and that they indulged themselves by the hundreds."

That doesn't make it right, only understandable. And Rodriguez had serious, make-it-happen motivation. He needed to justify the massive contract the Rangers had given him.

Still, even as this shortstop continued to show power that no shortstop ever had, he wasn't included in the steroid suspicions. He wasn't part of the BALCO mafia, as Bonds was, and he wasn't at war with a former trainer, as Clemens is.

So when Rodriguez denied steroid use in December of 2007 while on "60 Minutes," and there was no other evidence, that was it. Bonds, and later Clemens, would become the faces of this scandal.

But even in that "60 Minutes" interview, there were clues. Then, three days after George Mitchell's report was released, Rodriguez said this:

"I've never felt overmatched on the Baseball field. ... I felt that if I did my work as I've done since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I didn't have a problem competing at any level."

Going by the Rafael Palmeiro standard of angry, finger-pointing, defiance, Rodriguez was dancing.

Still, people wanted to believe Rodriguez. He was gifted, without as much muscle mass and body change. He seemed to be the real thing, and, as he continued to put up crazy stats, fans hoped for what Baseball hoped for.

He would pass Bonds, and the last honest man would reclaim the home-run record.

Instead, over the next six or seven years, Rodriguez will chase Bonds, and it won't matter.

He's already caught him.

bharvey@express-news.net