On A-Rod

I generally don't care terribly much about the off-field craziness that surrounds Alex Rodriguez, which is why I don't write about it very often. I wanted, however, to share a few thoughts and links regarding the whirlwind unleashed by the New York Daily News when they shared details from a leaked copy of Selena Roberts' forthcoming book.

First, it seems pretty apparent that the book is long on innuendo and short on verifiable facts. Assuming the Daily News' is representing the book fairly (an assumption that Ms. Roberts has confirmed), the allegations of current steroid use come from observations made by anonymous Yankee staff and players of how Rodriguez's body changed in 2005. Setting aside the question of how much credence should be given to the diagnostic talents of anonymous individuals without any medical training, these changes, as Paul Kix quite rightly notes over at ESPN, could just as easily be the result of withdrawal from steroids.

More problematic, perhaps, is the accusation that, while with the Rangers, Rodriguez would tip pitches in blowouts to friends on the opposing team so they could pad their stats, and that they would do the same for him. As YES Network's Steven Goldman notes these kind of shenanigans happened quite often in baseball's earlier eras, though it's unclear how they're viewed inside baseball today. Further compounding the confusion is the fact that, as a shortstop, Rodriguez could very well have been tipping pitches to his teammates, letting the rest of the infield know what might be coming. Without knowing more about Roberts' sources on the matter, it's hard to tell what to believe. It does strike me as a little odd, that no mention is made of who Rodriguez was allegedly exchanging tipped pitches with.

Ultimately, though, I think everything Roberts writes has to be taken with a grain of salt. Over at NBC Sports, Craig Calcaterra points out that Roberts' past reporting on Rodriguez has shown a penchant for trying to twist facts into the kind of sensationalist narrative that sells books, and her reporting on the infamous Duke Lacrosse case was even worse.

I'm not trying to defend anything Rodriguez did, nor am I trying to tell you which of these many allegations are true. All I am saying is that I don't find anything in these reports helpful in determining the truth, and I don't think they should change anyone's feelings on the man. If you loved him before, you should continue to do so, and if you hated him, you should do the same. As for me, I'll continue to be ambivalent towards him as a person while cheering him as a Yankee.

The Asterisk

In non-Yankee baseball news, fashion designer Mark Ecko will be donating Barry Bonds' record breaking 756th home run ball to the Baseball Hall of Fame after branding an asterisk into it. Ecko, who is a big fan of graffiti art, bought the ball for $752,467 (which makes me wish he would've ponied up the extra $3,533 to make it $756,000 even) and held an online poll allowing fans to decide what to do with it. 47% of fans voted to brand it with the asterisk and donate it to the Hall of Fame, 34% voted to donate it unblemished, and 19% voted to shoot it into space.

As a baseball history geek, I kind of like the result, not because I think Bonds' achievement should be denigrated, but because its a symbol of the era that achievement occurred in. I think fifty years from now fans will come to the Hall of Fame to see the ball and be reminded of how badly baseball owners and players dealt with the steroids issue, and how that affected the fans' view of the game.