I wasn’t going to post about the A-Rod suspension, etc. as MillersTime is not a place that competes with the various new and old media to be on the cusp of ‘breaking’ news.

But something occurred to me last night and this morning as I thought about what is happening here and as I’ve read most of the mainstream and not so mainstream media accounts of the A-Rod situation.

The good news, from my perspective, is that a group of important players have been caught and most of them have agreed not to drag us through their phony attempts to claim innocence. Ryan Braun for example last year.

The further good news is that more and more MLB players are speaking out and saying what they previously refrained from saying: there is no place for PEDs in our game.

Even the Players Union seems to have gotten the message for the most part, tho they have slid back a few steps in their defense of A-Rod. (Yes. Due process is central to our way of life, but in cases such as these, I don’t believe the accused should be allowed to play while the appeal process takes place.)

But there is one more piece that could help nail this coffin.

Derek Jeter needs to go to A-Rod and tell him to take his punishment now and not drag this out. (A-Rod has a three-day window in which he can still agree to abide by the suspension.)

A-Rod can’t do it by himself. He cannot distinguish between what’s good for A-Rod and what’s good for baseball. Even though he says he loves the game, basically he loves himself in the game. And if he really understood what was good for A-Rod, he’d take his punishment now.

Don’t hold your breath. It looks as if he’s going to drag everyone through months of ‘torture’ so that he can “get his day in court.”

No one is fooled. A-Rod knows this might be his last chance to play for the Yankees.

It is also his last chance to save anything good that is left of his name.

Jeter can help him and help baseball.

This situation is not about having your teammate’s back. A-Rod never had anyone’s back but his own.

If rather than ask A-Rod in the clubhouse, “How’s it going man?” Jeter took him aside and said what perhaps only a friend could say. “Do what’s right. Do it for yourself. Do it for baseball.”

Then we might well be on our way to putting the PED issue behind us.