As a young boy, everyone has their role models. If you played sports as a child, you always have your favorite player. In my generation, there are only a few I can actually look up to and say "i would want to be them". Too many of the "great" players in baseball these days cheat their way through the game to become the best. If they get caught it's one thing to apologize to teammates or coaches or fans, but it's a whole other thing to try to explain to the kids that looked up to them as role models.  
    As a young baseball player I had my share of role models. If I would be able to talk to my younger self, the conversation would go something like this. "I want to be like Sammy Sosa when I grow up!" Wait, you want to use steroids and corked bats when you get older? Or "I want to be like Roger Clemens when I grow up!" Oh, so you want to use steroids to become good, and then lie about in federal court? Or maybe even, "I want to be like Miguel Tejada when I grow up!" I got it, you want to lie about your age so you can get into the MLB, I guess that makes sense. A lot of my, and probably tons of other kids, "role-models" cheat their way through the game, like Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodiguez, Manny Ramirez, Miguel Tejada, Roger Clemens, and many others.  
     There are only a few players that I truthfully respect  and were my "role-models". Players like Jimmy Rollins, Mark Derosa, and Dustin Pedroia. The players who are amazing and don't need steroids and performance-enhancing drugs to to be good. Players who respect the game enough to know what is right and wrong. These are the kind of players that kids should be looking up to. Not the ones that are amazing because of their ability to cheat, but because of their ability to play. There are not many of them, but they shouldn't only be the role models for kids, but maybe even for baseball players themselves. If America's pastime is going to be full with players with use steroids and performance enhancing drugs in the future, who knows what baseball might become.    
      What I am trying to say is that if we look from the eyes of a child on matters like this, we can see who the real baseball players are. The  ones that kids can look up to and actually say " When I grow up, I want to be...". If I was a kid right now, and I was asked you I would want to be my pick would be Dustin Pedroia. Not Alex Rodiguez, or players like him.