Reusse: Becoming Timberwolves owner still won’t get Alex Rodriguez my Baseball Hall of Fame vote

There was a nonworking trip to New York to watch baseball over the July 4 holiday in 2007. The Twins would be playing four games in Yankee Stadium.

There were two Reusse gents, and we wound up with very good seats (thanks, Sid). We were down low to the left of the Yankees dugout. The first two rows for a couple of games were occupied by Michael Bloomberg and what appeared to be family members.

Bloomberg was in his second term as New York City’s popular mayor. What made our seats a couple rows farther back even better is that Bloomberg is not very tall. Of course, he would be very tall if he was standing on his money, for the current estimated wealth of the former Hizzoner is $104 billion.

The lasting impression of that series was the immense size of Alex Rodriguez as he spent time directly in front of us in the on-deck circle. From the usual location from the press box high above, A-Rod was impressively muscular.

In that on-deck circle, in uniform, he was the precursor to Giancarlo Stanton, not quite Aaron Judge. He blocked out left field. For the mayor and his companions, he had to block out the subway trains that run behind the ballpark in the Bronx.

I long have been amazed by the naivete of myself and most of the baseball writing fraternity when it came to steroids. Many of us assembled for the drama of the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa home run chase in September 1998.

We looked at the mammoth frame of McGwire, a 6-foot-5 string bean when he broke in with the A’s, and the muscle threatening to explode from the skin of Sosa, once a “put the ball in play and run” outfielder, and said:

“It’s amazing what these dedicated players can do with their year-round workouts.”

Steve Wilstein, a reporter for the Associated Press, took note of androstenedione in McGwire’s locker during the home run chase. America, and sportswriters, shrugged — for the most part.

By 2005, Congress was embarrassing baseball with hearings on steroids use. Rodriguez was not among those subpoenaed.

If this took place two years later, and feisty Rep. Henry Waxman was visiting Bloomberg at Yankee Stadium and spotted A-Rod in the on-deck circle, there was a 100% chance the gentleman from California would have said:

“I think we should get Alex in for a few questions.”

Put it this way: The Reusse delegation in July 2007 was not surprised two years later when it was reported that Rodriguez had been among 104 players who tested positive for steroids in “secret” tests in 2003.

Meaning, Jose Canseco was correct to express shock when A-Rod received no attention in the George Mitchell Report on steroids in baseball that was issued in December 2007.

Selena Roberts, a feisty Vikings reporter from the Star Tribune in a previous time, revealed all in her book, “A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez,” published in 2009.

OK, he was using steroids with a solid share of major league ballplayers all the way to those hearings in 2005. That doesn’t exclude our Twins. Never caught doesn’t mean never-used. I can give A-Rod a waiver for being in the steroid gang before the Congressional hearing.

Except, then they got you, and you’ve had to do some lying, and you jump back into the outlawed performance enhancer world as part of the Biogenesis scandal in the next decade.

The lies come for a while in that one, too, and then he fesses up — and also names some other users (per reporting by the New York Post, the official source for juicy A-Rod news).

I’m a longtime voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame. I don’t vote for the steroid guys on whom either MLB or credible news reporting got the goods. David Ortiz is said to get a mention in the Mitchell Report, and all those muscles added to hit home runs certainly were suspicious, but I did vote for Big Papi on the first ballot.

You need 75% to reach the Hall, and I have to be 75% certain in my mind to not vote for a guy.

A-Rod? He’s the worst of the steroids superstars in my view: Caught twice, alternating between lies and true confessions intended to gain a sympathetic reaction from the public.

We are expected to soon have him as the co-owner of the Timberwolves, with Marc Lore as the main partner, but with the good mayor from 2007 — Bloomberg — and his $104 billion as a backup, apparently.

So go ahead and cheer A-Rod mightily, Target Center fans. That won’t change his status as a two-time steroids sniveler for me as a Hall of Fame voter.

I also think it’s horrendous that MLB has not prevented Rodriguez from being part of its national telecasts. Not based on his steroids usage and lying; only due to the fact he’s terrible.

ADDENDUM: We watched the Twins lose three of four from those good seats in 2007, but we did get to see A-Rod go 0-for-12, so that was fun.