* RK Review: A-Rod

The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez, by Selena Roberts (Harper Collins)

There’s a telling reference in Selena Robert’s new expose on Alex Rodriguez:

[Rodriguez] pursued his investments with the same conflicted soul. He projected a Mister Rogers benevolence, but he was more like Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life.

Reading A-Rod, I got the feeling that she was channeling Robert Duval as the sinister sportswriter Max Mercy in The Natural who offers a veiled threat to Robert Redford’s Roy Hobbs. He can make or break the likes of Hobbs, he warns, demanding the ballplayer’s excluisve story. Where does such hostility come from? (To use another movie metaphor, Roberts reminds one of the erstwhile reporter in the classic films of the 1930s, willing to do anything to get the story. But those were usually comedies.)

In his May 15 review of the book in The New York Times, Nicholas Dawidoff characterizes Roberts’ “hastily constructed but important account” as “less a full-biography that a first-rate magazine profile.”

Indeed, the bulk of her biography is sandwiched between two thin slices in which she confronts Rodriguez during a workout and seems surprised that he doesn’t welcome her with open arms. (Anyone who’s ever worked out in more than a perfunctory manner knows that you don’t like being interrupted in the best of circumstances, let alone by a reporter slinging accusations.) This became the basis of an article that first appeared on SI.com and later morphed into the book. It almost appears that her purpose all along was to write this tell-all bio, and that PED situation was the icing on the cake.

In her explanation of why she chose to confront Rodriguez during an off-season workout, Roberts writes:

I went to Alex because a player told me he had witnessed a strange scene: [Kevin] Brown and Alex had ampoules of HGH in their possession at Yankee Stadium. “I don’t know what they were doing with it,” he said. The player was very clear that he hadn’t seen either Brown or Alex inject it and reminded me that “the stuff wasn’t banned then.” That was true. (emphasis added).

Robert returns to the scene at the gym in the book’s epilogue, offering a point-by-point account of her attempts to track him down (Inspector Javert?) and the aftermath with a virtual “he said/she said,” which somehow seemed a forced way to try to prove her points.

Dawidoff writes that Roberts “proved that Rodriguez took [steroids] when he was y0ung, strong, and financially secure.” Proved? I’m sorry, but I still don’t see that part. One of the knocks on her book is the too-frequent use of phrases such as “to some experts” or “one source said.” In questioning how the lower-middle class Rodriguez family could afford the $5,000 tuition at the Westminster Christian School, she writes “there would be allegations,” but quickly covers with “No improprieties were ever proved.” I understand “the code,” by which you don’t knock your teammate, but I also imagine more than a few of those sources are no longer in the game and therefore beyond reprisals.

In addition to — indeed, perhaps even more important than— the drug accusations, Roberts brings up another serious charge: that Rodriguez, while a member of the Texas Rangers, tipped off opposing batters as to what pitches were coming. Again she falls back on the observations of anonymous tipsters. “Few Rangers were aware it was going on, but those who did were maddened by it”

It’s inconceivable to me that said teammates would allow anyone, even a superstar, to get away with such nonsense, that they wouldn’t tale care of it “in house.” She offers statistical “proof” that after Rodriguez, left, the Rangers’ ERA dropped to 4.53 (4.54 according to Baseball-Reference.com), as if this was totally Rodriguez’s doing. Maybe the pitching was just poor? In the turn-around year of 2004, the staff was led by 39-year-old Kenny Rogers, who posted a career-best 18-9 record and 35 games started. With everything that’s been said about Roger Clemens excelling at an advanced age, nothing on Rogers? Hmm. And wasn’t Rogers the target of accusations of cheating during the 2006 World Series?

(In today’s “Keeping Score” column in The New York Times, Dan Rosenheck offers an interesting, if not totally convincing, argument against Roberts’ allegations. In “Rodriguez Didn’t Tip Pitches, Numbers Indicate” he writes, “Most of the attention given to the issue so far has focused on whether Rodriguez really participated in tipping schemes. But nearly as important as the question of intent, if not more important, is that of effect: whether the arrangements actually made any difference.” I respectfully disagree: the intent is the most important consideration; it’s not Rodriguez’s fault if the batter can’t tale advantage. Lots of hitters don’t even eant to know what’s coming.)

Roberts also points to Rodriguez’s three-home run game as a member of the Rangers in the middle of a typically hot August in Texas in 2002:

This tape of performance set off the steroids alarms. In the dog days of the season, when players are wilting, A-Rod had fresh legs and a fresher bat. “It’s the stuff that makes you say no…way,” said one Rangers teammate.”

There have been almost 500 instances of three-homer games. You have to figure a good portion of them occurred on hot and humid days. The Sporting News offers a list and somewhere (Retrosheet.org?) there must be box scores that include game time temperatures; it would be interesting to parse that. And as for the anonymous player statement, one would have to hear it to get the nuance of meaning. Could it not have simply been a comment of disbelieving admiration? In referring to his 60 Minutes apperance in which he swore he didn’t take steroids, she notes, “Experts at facial expressions would later point out the slight twitch in Alex’s left cheek as he spoke, indicating a possible lie” (emphasis added). How about an expert on voice analusis?

Is A-Rod a self-centered jerk? Has he made lots of poor decisions and alienated people? Absolutely, and there is no small number of teammates willing to say so for attribution. Is he unthinking at times? Probably. Roberts recounts the 2001 All-Star Game in which Rodriguez, playing his customary shortstop, made a grand gesture of yielding the spot to future Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr., who was appearing in his final season. Ripken may have complained about it afterwards because he was mentally prepared to play his now-regular position of third (and phsyically as well, since he had his third baseman’s glove on). Rodriguex may have wanted to make a big show of his munificence, but does anyone believe he actually wanted to show up the Orioles legend?

For someone wishing to make her point, the inclusion of comments such as A-Rod liking older women or that a young lady paraded in front of him at a club “in a dress the size and color of a bee’s hide” seems to detract from Roberts tacit purpose. I found it interesting that during my readings of other reviews of the book, the most criticism came from those outside the field, of sports journalism field. Like ballplayers, I guess t’s not cool to call out one of your own.