(PHOTO: Andrew Mills/THE STAR-LEDGER via USA TODAY Sports)

Apparently we’re still yelling about this stuff. According to Jimmy Traina of FOX Sports, a New York Daily News reader took out a full-page ad in the paper to argue that Alex Rodriguez’s name should heretofore be accompanied by an asterisk because it will somehow better honor Willie Mays.

Here it is:

OK. Huh. Where to start?

Well, first, beyond the irony that the reader identifies himself as a Giants fan — the team of Barry Bonds, of course — there’s this: Mays himself used amphetamines during his playing career. And that really shouldn’t take anything away from him. Lots of guys did, and Mays was an extraordinary ballplayer, one of the very greatest of all time. No one’s about to forget that just because A-Rod will soon surpass him in career home runs.

Second, there is not a conscious baseball fan in the world who does not already know that Alex Rodriguez used performance-enhancing drugs. At this point, A-Rod is likely better associated with cheating than he is with greatness. An asterisk is necessary to indicate a footnote, but these days, Rodriguez’s incredible, Hall of Fame-caliber numbers are the footnote to a career headlined by his reputation for steroids use.

(PHOTO: Jared Wickerham / Getty Images)

Third, and perhaps most importantly: Alex Rodriguez just finished serving a one-year, unpaid suspension for his involvement in the Biogenesis scandal. That’s the punishment. If anything, A-Rod deserves an asterisk to denote that he received a suspension longer than the collectively bargained, 50-game ban that was the norm for first-time offenders at the time he was caught.

Sometime soon, Rodriguez is going to hit his 660th and 661st Major League home run to move into fourth place on MLB’s all-time home run list. And that’s kind of a big deal, no matter what the Yankees will have you believe. But those accomplishments will certainly help draw more attention to Mays’ excellence than a lifetime ban for A-Rod would have, and literally no one in the world will forget what A-Rod did in the past just because of what’s happening in the present.

And the baseball world will remember Rodriguez’s indiscretions long into the future, just as generations of fans — myself included — understand and appreciate Mays’ brilliance despite never having seen him play. It turns out the sport has a pretty healthy respect for its history.

Every baseball fan and player and executive and media member has already long since made up his mind about Alex Rodriguez. Daily News reader, I’m sorry to say this, but your full-page ad accomplishes nothing. Nor does this post. We carry on.