That's What She Said

I usually try to avoid discussions on A-Rod. He's a great baseball player and a flawed individual who gets beat up in the media more than anyone except Bonds. I just think the accusations and hearsay thrown out by journalist Selena Roberts are over the line, and that's why I've decided to take a page out of Jason Whitlock's book and declare shenanigans on Selena. Any quotes you see are from this article.

Accusation 1: "a player told me [Selena Roberts] he had witnessed a strange scene: [Kevin] Brown and Alex had ampules of HGH in their possession at Yankee Stadium."

A well respected journalist told me that Selena Roberts is a worthless hack of a journalist. His name is Jason Whitlock. Do you see the difference between what I write and what Selena writes? I name the source, thus allowing an opposing viewpoint a real chance to challenge my claim. Using unnamed, anonymous sources is a disgrace to journalistic integrity. What if I said a journalist told me he witnessed Selena Roberts snorting coke in the bathroom? That statement would be considered libelous, yet it is perfectly analogous to the claim Selena is making.

Accusation 2: A-Rod was juicing in high school. Selena explains that "I've talked to players who say he was using in high school, but if you want to discard that…"

Unless you want to name these players, I absolutely want to discard that. Everybody in the fucking world should want to discard that. It is not credible information, it is pure bullshit. Doug Mientkiewicz, an actual person who has been proven to exist, came out and said he never saw A-Rod use steroids.

"'… you look at the physical evidence,' she told the AP. 'You look at a player who by his own coach's account was unrecognizable his junior year because his body had changed so much. Scouts didn't recognize him. In his sophomore year he could barely bench press 100 pounds. By his junior year, he was bench pressing 300 pounds.'"

Don't believe my anecdotal evidence? Well how about more anecdotal evidence!? Here's a question for you Selena: How the FUCK could you possibly know what A-Rod was benching in high school? Answer for you Selena: It would be impossible for you to actually know that. I'm not saying A-Rod didn't juice in high school, looking at his statistics, it's likely he did. In his 3-year high school career, A-Rod hit with a .417 batting average and 17 HRs. He hit .506 with 9 of those 17 HRs in his senior year. So yeah, he did have a meteoric rise during his high school career. But it's also unlikely he hit below .300 his sophomore year, when he was a puny shrimp who happened to be named to the U.S. Junior Olympic baseball team. Does it seem likely that a .300 hitter who plays for the United States Junior Olympic baseball team could barely bench 100 pounds? Maybe he took steroids in high school, maybe he just hit puberty and worked out like a maniac (say what you want, but he does work out like a maniac). Either way, the point is that Selena's accusation is entirely not credible and stupid.

Accusation 3: A-Rod is so starved for attention that he will do anything to get it. "But more interesting than the drug accusations is the psychological portrait of a needy Rodriguez desperately trying to create a lovable image yet wrecking it by running around with strippers, going to a "swingers' club" and to illegal poker venues. Roberts called it 'a battle he is waging' that's made him a staple of the gossip pages. 'He went through a phase where, I think, and maybe he's still going through the phase, I don't know, where he really I think felt as if he had transcended baseball and reached a different level with the public, on a higher celebrity level, than he was as a ballplayer,' she said."

You know what everybody HATES? Amateur psychologists. If you play amateur psychologist, you should be punched in the throat and have your greatest fears and insecurities announced to people over a loudspeaker. How incredibly fucking arrogant of you to assume you know how a person thinks and operates, then to present it as fact to the public. What's wrong with A-Rod liking strippers? They are people, it's not like he's in to beastiality. What's wrong with A-Rod playing poker? As a 13 year old, I played illegal poker with my friends all the time. Let me know when he's betting on baseball.

"That celebrity only has increased in the past two years as he got interested in Kaballah, became friends with Madonna and divorced his wife Cynthia. While most Yankees who live in Manhattan take apartments on the East Side, convenient for traveling to the ballpark, Rodriguez has rented a $30,000-a-month apartment two blocks from Madonna's Manhattan residence on the West Side."

Why does Roberts keep bringing up Rodriguez's questionable relationships with women? We get that the man is flawed, why is there a need to keep bringing these up unless you're attempting character assassination? A person is not bad because he got divorced and a person is not bad because he goes to strip clubs. Said person probably has a lot of issues with women. And that's part of why I think Selena Roberts went on this crusade to destroy A-Rod's public image. Roberts is a well documented feminist and she most likely hates the way A-Rod acts towards women. I can understand this, from the stories it certainly appears A-Rod does not treat women well. Sit down with him and write a book about that. Do not seek out unnamed sources and use them to utterly destroy the public perception of another human being. That is both terrible reporting and being a total douche.

"She writes 'the abandoned boy within Alex Rodriguez made him particularly gullible to the influence of successful, authoritative men, so it was easy for [agent] Scott Boras to manipulate him like a sock puppet.'"

When did Scott Boras manipulate Rodriguez? Are you confusing Rodriguez with Manny Ramirez? Their last names are kind of similar I guess. Let's examine the circumstance under which A-Rod left. He claimed he wanted to stay and didn't, he claimed he wanted to play for a competitive team and the Rangers were not competitive after he joined. Alright. At the time, the Mariners had just finished in first and the Rangers in fourth. But, the M's had let traded Griffey in 1999 and let Randy Johnson walk in 1998. It wasn't unreasonable to assume that the M's were headed in the wrong direction. The Rangers had Pudge and Rafael Palmeiro in their primes. They got Andres Galarrage who had averaged 38 HRs, 123 RBIs, and a .369 OBP the past 5 years. It's reasonable to think that the Rangers were headed in the right direction. So then we have Rodriguez's stated desire to play in Seattle. Seattle offered a 3 year deal worth 54 million dollars with a 2 year option for an additional 38 million dollars for a total of 92 million dollars over 5 years. Texas offered 252 million over 10 years. 150 million dollars is a big difference, even for me and I'm the guy who railed against Mark Texeira for being about over last dollar. Texeira was manipulated. He trade his home town team for an 15 percent more money. Rodriguez went out and got 167 percent more money. With the numbers being so incredibly disparate, I don't see how anyone can claim Boras manipulated A-Rod into taking the contract. Well you can, but you end up looking like a fucking moron who doesn't know what the fuck their talking about and should get back in the goddamn… newsroom where they can perform more research.

Accusation 4: Teammates referred to A-Rod as "Bitch Tits".

Not to his face they didn't. Not if he was as juiced as you claim he was. Because if they did, he would beat the living daylights out of these teammates. Or maybe they did and A-Rod's reputation as a terrible teammate is totally undeserved because his teammates are total jags. Or most likely, a few guys referred to him as Bitch Tits behind his back and Selena Roberts is publicizing this in a blatant attempt to piss Rodriguez off. What an unfair, mean-spirited, and largely irrelevant thing to publicly announce about a person.

Accusation 5: A-Rod tipped pitches to opponents in hopes that they would return the favor.

I doubt it. Possible, but you'd think with all the cameras recording the game that we would have some footage of this. You know actual video evidence instead of hearsay. In fact I have yet to see any real evidence for any of these accusations. It's all bullshit. Jolting end to the article coming in 5,4,3,2 now.