Hanging around with Madonna is no one’s idea of a good influence on a family man. Juicing your body may not be unusual in baseball, but it isn’t particularly admirable.
And that’s before we add dropping into Vegas casinos, hanging out at strip clubs, and the capper: sharing pitch signals with opposing batters in return for the same favor down the line.
A-Rod is one confused guy. He’s an accident that has already happened.
New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez is in the news again. Major League Baseball, which isn’t having a good 21st century, is investigating what performance-enhancing drugs he took and when he started taking them. Then there’s Selena Roberts, the Sports Illustrated writer who is the bane of the New York Yankee’s existence for having broken the news earlier this year that he took such drugs. She has published a book, A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez.’
In truth, none of those lives is particularly mysterious anymore, or appealing, or even all that interesting. We’ve already heard that Rodriguez is a doper, a cheater, a spectacular power hitter and a big jerk. Roberts repeats all that and adds some new accusations, suggesting (but not proving) that A-Rod’s use of performance-enhancing substances was deeper and longer than what we already suspected.
This is the investigative equivalent of finishing 32 games out of first place instead of 27. You’re still a bottom-dweller.
The Roberts book will be mined for its titillating details about the way Rodriguez played the field for the Seattle Mariners, the Texas Rangers and the Yankees as well as how he played the field after hours, and how he performed in both categories.
In these pages there is special emphasis on human-growth hormones and a mysterious substance — no one quite knows what it is — called boli.
The value of this volume is less in the all-important “gotcha’’ category than it is in how accurately Roberts got into Rodriguez’s head, and how well she understands this man, who is trying to be portrayed as misunderstood rather than the meathead he is. And in this she is merciless.
Try this: “Alex liked thinking of himself as an enigma. It made him feel more dramatic and alluring and worthy of attention.’’ Or this: “Alex searched for meaning constantly as if the right catch-phrase from a self-help book could ground him in a normalcy he at once longed for and feared.’’ Plus this: “The arc that traces Alex Rodriguez’s rise to superstardom neatly parallels the one tracking the abuse of steroids in baseball.’’ She knows her guy.
One of the most shocking elements of this book — and I suppose it is refreshing that scandal-wracked sports fans still can be shocked — is Roberts’s claim that during his time with the Texas Rangers, Rodriguez conspired with opposing batters to provide them with advance notice of whether the pitcher was planning a curveball or a slider and where the pitch was headed.
This vital information was provided with the understanding that these rival players — middle infield players like himself in a position to see the catcher’s signals — would return the favor.
Such moves would come late in a lopsided game where the outcome was no longer much in doubt, but still it is cheating, of course. It is also selfishness — and a shocking betrayal of his teammates in the hope that his own batting performance might be enhanced.
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