Yesterday, something important happened: Alex Rodriguez admitted to using steroids. This was so important that a reporter from the Washington Post actually used valuable time in the first press conference of Barack Obama’s presidency to ask the President what he thought about it. Helen Thomas was pissed.

Because this story is so very serious and important, there is literally as much analysis of it as you could possibly want to read. It’s everywhere. And while some of it is pretty good, as a rule A-Rod seems to inspire the worst in our sportswriting brethren. Or, at minimum, he provides the already-bad with a chance to flex their schlockiest rhetorical muscles.

Which brings us to Bill Dwyre. Dwyre is just one man, sure, but I would like to posit that this is one of the single worst in-column gimmicks ever written:

Major League Baseball, led by the administrative brain trust of Commissioner Bud Selig and union guys Donald Fehr and Gene Orza, now has a bit of a sad song to sing:

The economy is tanking,

It’s time for spring training,

Our best player just told the world he cheated,

The smell of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens is still in the air,

And Manny Ramirez just turned down $25 million for one year.

You can almost hear Loretta Lynn twanging it. She could call the album “Baseball Blues.”

Oh my God. He’s right. I can almost hear Loretta Lynn twanging it OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP MY PRETEND EARS ARE BLEEDING TESTOSTERONE.

To be fair, Dwyre does follow up with “My name is Bud Selig/I made $18 million last year/And everybody hates me.” Which is kind of funny! But not funny enough to undo the damage of that which came before it.

Oh, and Exhibit B: This guy wants the Yankees to cut A-Rod loose. Sigh. The Realests already summed that one up nicely (with a clip from “The Beach,” no less), so I won’t add anything except: of course. Of course there was going to be at least one person in New York who wrote that column. It’s so predictable, and yet so sad. Bill Madden, you are the winner. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

UPDATE: We may have a new winner. Real Clear Sports points us to John Kampf of The News Herald who says A-Rod just needed Uncle Phil from “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” to set him straight. Ha ha ha BUT HE’S ACTUALLY SERIOUS.