Should U of Miami rename its baseball stadium?

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Rodriguez, who was recruited to Miami (for baseball and football) but never played there, donated $3.9 million to renovate the stadium. Those are 3.9 million reasons to keep everything the way it is. But now the stadium is an unavoidable reminder of what Rodriguez has done to tarnish the sport he loves. He's not welcome in Major League Baseball – 211 games, pending arbitration – and yet he's welcoming fans to college baseball.

This decision has already been made once. Miami feted him only days after he confessed to taking performance enhancing drugs as a member of the Texas Rangers. Rodriguez got a 45-second standing ovation when he appeared at the dedication ceremony in Coral Gables in 2009. It was the first time he spoke publicly since his admission.

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It's not just a Rodriguez story, either. Ryan Braun played at Miami. Jimmy Goins, a strength and conditioning coach for the team, is named in Biogenesis documents as receiving banned substances. And the clinic itself is walking distance from the stadium.

Now the stadium is a reminder of Biogenesis, not a reminder of the young man who loved Miami baseball so much that he tried to sneak his way into games. Rodriguez would have played at the U, but he took the money instead. Now, in a way, Miami is beholden to that money.

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There is an argument to be made on Rodriguez's behalf. He did donate the money, and quite a lot of it. He did act to make the program better, by making its facilities better. That action was indisputably generous, and indisputably beneficial to student-athletes. The University of Michigan has several buildings named for shopping mall entrepreneur Alfred Taubman, and he served time in prison for price fixing. Breaking the law is far worse than breaking the rules of baseball.

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It's easy to cluck and say the name should be removed, or that Miami shouldn't have taken the money in the first place. But consider the situation: Miami is a relatively small, private institution. It doesn't have the fat-wallet boosters of a Florida or Florida State. Donors like Rodriguez don't come around every day, and in fact they don't come around at all. College baseball programs like Miami must do everything to compete at the highest level. Do they live with the consequences of Rodriguez's cheating? Or live with the consequences of taking the high road?

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