Is it sad that I've been watching the Tour of California bike race at night to get away from steroids talk?

What the media is doing to A-Rod is beyond the pale. Selena Roberts did stalk him. She went to his home and to where he worked out. And she's writing a hit job on him. The only reason he backed off is because the Yankees made him.

Secondly, A-Rod has admitted more and given more details than any other player ever in this situation. The media completely backed off on Giambi after he just apologized form something he couldn't say what he was apologizing for. A-Rod actually named what he was taking, how it was obtained and how it was put in his body. But yet, he still gets hammered in a way Giambi, Pettitte and others have never been. Its tiresome and likely has nothing to do with PEDs.

The media has blamed A-Rod for everything that has went wrong with the Yankees for a long time and they are giddy they now have this to lord over him.

I thought it was that Alex didn't know what he tested positive for. It is kind of weird, that Gene Orza told him that he was on the list of players who may have tested positive. WTF? Were these positive tests or not? And if it was supposed to be anonymous, how could anyone know who exactly tested positive.

My take is that A-Rod was being pretty straight forward about what he used: boli and "Ripped Fuel" (either the actual stuff or greenie enhanced coffee). The RF/greenies was so common amongst baseball and not outlawed until later, that I can't see bashing him for that, without going after every other ballplayer.

I do think he's being a bit disingenuous about what he was thinking at the time. I can accept the "cousin" story, but I'm sure he realized it wasn't quite kosher in the US which is why he hid it. And I did a bunch of stupid stuff in my 20s, even though I was an adult. I am responsible for my actions back then, but I wasn't as wise as I am now.

Lastly, there are some people who, no matter what A-Rod says or does, will not accept it or give him the benefit of the doubt. To me, he's said enough about it, absent future revelations. Sure he could have talked more about his state of mind during those three years but I lump him in with Pettitte and Giambi as at least acknowledging and apologizing, which puts them ahead of everyone else.

Now let's get down to worrying about the outfield and Cano.

[2] Dave, as long as he's the only game in town, and when the town is New York, and you add the hostility he generates, even without the steroids issue, you have your perfect media storm.

I was thinking about this last night, some people, here (and ARod out there!) were talking about getting this over with and back to baseball. Not going to happen. Everyone: there's a BOOK coming out! Soon. They pushed pub date up to rush it to us. (Nice of them.) This is going to be, almost by definition, a nail-the-dude book. His private life will be ours to enjoy, courtesy of Selena and co. Does she have a right? Of course. (Though there is a BIG elephant in the parlor about the legality of leaking his name and she may end up with some courtroom herself, and a contempt of court issue if she protects her source.)

What adds to my depression on this is how it is going to stay with the Yankees so long, and very likely impact the season of a player established as sensitive and inclined to press when he wants to 'prove' something.

Unless and until, seems to me, a lot of other names come out, and these include some current stars, too, Rodriguez and the Yankees are what this story is all about for 2009 in terms of ACTIVE players. (Bonds and Clemens are not, obviously. Tejada's pleaded to lying about a teammate's use, not to using.)

[2] I blame "El Primo" from D.R. He started this mess by them "playfully" figuring out where to inject The Rod, then he might have gone too far by "possibly" injecting The Rod in the neck and then it went to far, and The Rod said, "this has to stop, this might kill me or ruin my baseball career".

I wonder what else The Rod experimented with when he was "young and naive", like...did he experiment with hardcore drugs? was he influenced by hard-core Islam? Did he ever think of of joining Heaven's Gate? The guy was young and naive so I want to know the extent of his naivete now. I'm thinking, and this is just PURE speculation, that The Rod might have been the 21st hijacker. Shit, he was young and naive....he was easily influenced by the world around him.

[4] Do you know if there's any truth to what Kirk Radomski said on WFAN -- that the leak came from four of ARod's former teammates?

If that's the case, man that complicates matters....it would mean, OMG!!!, that his teammates do hate the guy.

Honestly, I think that Jayson Stark list of "inconsistencies" is pretty weak. I didn't read the whole thing because I navigated to the article and was immediately attacked by espn.com ads, which I can't deal with. But from what I see here, it's not very compelling.

Diane (and others) - WHAT DO YOU EXPECT from this guy?
He didn't tell Gammo about his cousin? Is it hard to understand why? Frankly, I thought it was terrible to confess to that now. Certainly 'a friend' would have been better then 'cousin'. Now this cousin will be hunted down. I hope the cousin is not really a cousin.

As is typical when people judge ARod on any issue... on this issue, he has been more candid then ANY OTHER PLAYER in history. Even honest Andy took a few turns at this before he gave up the 'whole truth'.

I don't know if there are legal ramifications, or 'legal' as far as MLB goes, but any player would be crazy to tell any more then they think they absolutely had to. I thought admitting THREE YEARS of doing a PED was quite candid, and should have been enough. There was no reason to say more. The salacious details are just for the media whores. What more do we REALLY need to know?

He said he used for 3 years. He said he's been clean since 2004. I'm sure now he will be tested more then the average MLB player. That's it. That's enough,

Now, every media idiot will be pouring through his statement, looking for any and every inconsistancy. Because it's important? NO! Because even the most inconsequential news generates page views and paper sales.

Now we can looking forward to:
BREAKING HEADLINE:
"ARod said _________ happened on a Tuesday. But due to my investigating reporting, I found out it was REALLY on a Wednesday. WEDNESDAY! ARod lied again! How can we trust ANYTHING he has said! WHEN WILL HIS LIES END!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And so on.
He said too much. The Yankees should have gagged him.
And if he was telling the truth...when you consider he was playing in that little stadium in Texas, during the absolute primest years of his career, I don't see that much of a deviation in his stats. And certainly, 2007 showed us that hitting 50 HRs, even at 32 years old, is well within his (non PEDs) ability.

There is something seriously wrong when the media coverage and reaction is virtually identical whether players boldly lie about even taking steroids, like Bonds or Clemens, and when a player honestly admits that he took steroids, like A-Rod, but trims some of the secondary facts.

That reality says more about the pathetic state of sports "journalism" than it does about A-Rod's character.

In fact, Giambi received better coverage and he only tacitly acknowledged using steroids, albeit he still faced legal jeopardy. On the other hand, if the economy wasn't in freefall, A-Rod would almost certainly be called to testify before Congress, and possibly still could be.

Dianne I think you missed the best story of the day: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/opinion/09glanville.html

Doug Glanville in the NY Times is the most human article I've seen this week.

I'm unimpressed with the claim of inconsistencies in his stories. The guy is responding to questions without having time for reflection, and anyone who has ever done any kind of investigating knows peoples' stories are rarely completely straight. In fact, if he was 100% consistent I would be less trusting. It's obvious and understandable (and not objectionable) that he'd be trying to obscure some issues, especially where he would get others in trouble. But the idea that with all these advisers he's intentionally lying but doing such a bad job of it that sportswriters are brilliant enough to see right through it seems lame. I don't see any evaluation of the body of evidence/answers, I see cherry picking. And that's not reporting, it's persecution (or sensationalism, etc). I'm just really unimpressed, once again, that the hordes are following the narrative in lock step. Maybe this story is big enough for Christophe Hitchens or some other contrarian to do some damage.

This kind of thing ALWAYS happens with people - you ask them one question one way and they give you one kind of answer, phrase it another way and they interpret it differently and answer a different question. It's not necessarily that they're trying to lie, it's just that communication is a lot more subtle than is captured in written transcripts. This is why reporters (and investigators) ask lots of questions in a number of ways - it's the whole damn point. If we didn't understand there would be different nuggets in each statement we wouldn't go through the trouble of asking the Same Damn Question a million times - but we do. And now all of a sudden the natural foundation of the journalism profession is reason to roast a guy. Can't anyone take a step back and a deep breath?

[10] err, don't know how I missed that that article is from last week. So I'm an idiot too!

FWIW, and I grant you possibly not much, Max Kellerman had a body language "expert" on who thought he was lying with Gammons but was truthful yesterday.

Jason Giambi is a beloved athlete among the press corp. He has a great reputation for being amenable and personable. That served him well at the time of his vague "apology" for doing whatever.

A-Rod, on the other hand, has never been able to rally the press around him, to put it mildly. They are going to go after him to the full extent of the laws of journalism.

The most news worthy part of this event is listening to Cashman. Ouch! Boy he's had some nuggets. I'd love to see a transcript of his sound bytes.

BTW, Doug Glanville is spot on!

[13] I look at that as a huge indictment against ARod, when his own G.M is taming his support for the man, then even he can see through the obvious destruction the player is causing to himself.

I'm still fascinated by the cousin angle, what dope!

I still find myself asking, what would Yankee fans say about A.) Selena Roberts B.) The Peter Gammons interview C.) Yesterday's interview D.) The legitimacy of what ARod has said, IF it weren't ARod but Manny Ramirez during the years 2001 - 2003 who took the BOLI?

If it was ten years ago today that the Wells for Clemens deal happened, that means its ten years ago today that I (literally) fell out of my computer lab chair, swearing, as I read about the deal on the internet during a break in a class. Ah, the good old days.

So, how many days until spring training games start?

[16] Looks like Feb 25, against Toronto.

http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/schedule/index.jsp?c_id=nyy&m=2&y=2009

One week!!!!!

He may be lying about something or everything. At what point do you just say "fuck it"? I guess as a journalist you're trained to keep going, and going and going until everything that can possibly be revealed is revealed. But for me, I don't really care. Just as initially I thought the story of the leak was far secondary to the story of the doping, now I think admitting use is the main thing and all these details people are obsessing over are a distant second.

The story is A Rod cheated - or whatever you want to call it. Not that he was evasive or manipulative, etc, etc. You can argue that he is keeping the story alive by doing those things, but I don't see it as unusual behavior, nor very compelling in suggesting another storyline. In other words, maybe he's lying, but I don't see the evidence. Most of it seems to hinge on this idea that a superstar would never take something he's not 100% sure of the ingredients. Maybe it's a fair assessment to say he wouldn't take something in ignorance as he claims, but I don't think it's an airtight reason to disbelieve him.

There seems to be this prevailing notion also that there's something inherently unethical or phony about blaming youthful indiscretion ... I don't get that, frankly. First of all, he wants to separate himself from the A Rod that doped. He's just saying he isn't the same guy anymore. I don't really consider it making an excuse - he's explicitly taken responsibility more than once. Sure the fact that he was in his mid-twenties somewhat undercuts the argument, but whether that's still young enough to make youthful screwups is a bit in the eye of the beholder, and he tried to contextualize it with the business about entering the league so young, in essence saying his growth was stunted, he was immature, so even as a 25 year old he wasn't quite where he needed to be in terms of growing up.

This also helps frame using steroids in the way he did; the surreptitious, semi-ghetto MO with his cousin. As slick as A Rod comes off, this suggests, underneath he simply wasn't (and probably) isn't like that, not to that extent anyway.

I feel like it's a plausible scenario. It might not be the MOST plausible but it's not exactly sci-fi either. And as I said, I really don't need to buy into every detail anyway. The main point is he doped and all those records are marred.

I just hope - and I think it's gonna happen - he has a monster year. However, he may collapse altogether. We'll see.

[15] I agree. Cashman had a look of parental disappointment. I've seen that look before. I just fired an employee because of the same kind attraction to drama and chaos that A-Rod seems to gravitate towards. Her antics were greatly disturbing the flow and harmony to my business.

But, here we're talking about the most talented guy in baseball under a contract so we fans could watch him break records that some people now think will be tainted. Buyer's remorse is what Cashman has.

From Cashman's point of view, I think he's had it up to his eyeballs in running interference. Alex is a business plan that needs restructuring, caused by a bait and switch. But,how? This is not necessarily my point of view, but I am looking at it from Cashman's perspective. Rough!

[10], [11]

I only vaguely referenced it in comment #30 here
http://www.bronxbanterblog.com/2009/02/11/news-of-the-day-21109/#comments

All told, a monster year will be the best medicine for all this stuff.

[19]

Agreed .... its like "NINE more years till he goes off to college (hopefully)?"

[21]

I wouldn't use the word "medicine" right about now .... :-P

Rob Neyer also referenced that Glanville article last week.

Yankee Mama makes the key point. Giambi's oafish 'I did stuff wrong' semi-apology was far better received by the press than A-Rod's statement. The press picks and chooses stories and how intensely to cover them based on appeal to readers and right now the A-Rod coverage is the equivalent of Sports TMZ.

[25]

But A-Rod DOES bring a lot of this on himself:
a) He hires Scott Boras as his agent, who produces a virtual TOME on A-Rod to justify the $252 million he sought and got. Boras also proclaimed that Alex would be opting out of the remainder of his last contract .... during a World Series game (remind me ... did A-Rod give Boras the go-ahead to do that at that moment).
b) He is so mindful (some would say insecure) of his image that he has a veritable board of directors for his public relations dealings. Having THAT MANY voices in one's ear most likely makes the situation worse.
c) He gets himself involved with a woman who herself has been (in)famous for doing provocative, attention-getting things (Madonna).

One thing I WILL say on A-Rod's behalf .... regardless of the truthiness of his "confession", I would have certainly understood if he, in his opening statement yesterday, prefaced it all by mentioning that the release of his particular test result was a clear violation of his right to privacy, and that he would be seeking legal recourse.

[25] Isn't the difference with Giambi that stuff was leaked out, where his grand jury testimony actually had him describing how he took the steroids, where he got injected, who did it, where he got it, etc?

The media already had the facts, he just had to be contrite and apologize. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[27] Now you’re just being an apologist for Giambi. His apology, if you can call it one, was weak. He got nailed to the wall for a day or two, then he greased his hair back, flexed his tats while wearing his slumpbuster thong, and everyone laughed and let the whole things slide. His lack of referencing detail was not because “all the facts were out there” it was to cover his butt in court.

Sure he brings it upon himself, but that makes us no better for shooting the fish in a barrel. It's like lambasting the octo-mom - what a surprise that a narcissistic emotionally unstable cat lady is doing stuff consistent with emotional instability, narcissism, and cat-lady-ism. We weren't all born with the gift of flawless logic, perfect memories, good judgment, ability to pick good friends, etc. The fact that, knowing how flawed a person ARod is, people want to keep acting all surprised his story is jumbled, he exercised bad judgment, he 'brings it on himself'... well duh!

What he did was wrong, it's right to report that forcefully, but there are real stories in this: who/why leaked the info, how the union could've screwed this pooch so royally, do "PEDs" really enhance performance, are we doing ourselves and "the children" a disservice by continually stressing how these drugs are "performance enhancing", should we also be working on getting other sports/professions up to baseball's level (as opposed to just pointing out the double standard), etc. But all we get, 2 weeks into this, is teh Aroid sux no HOF for him, cheaterz!1!!!!!11!1

[28] How am I being an apologist for Giambi? If the facts were already out, the leaked grand jury testimony, then what else is there that he has to reference or bring light to?

ARod keeps changing the story, that's the point I'm trying to make. If Giambi changed his story and kept introducing new characters then it wouldn't end either. I think the circumstances are different.

The same with Pettite, he first admitted to taking roids in one year, then the reporters found evidence that his father had been buying the drugs for him, he was obviously trying to protect him and once that was already known, he admitted to everything.

ARod said it didn't matter who got him the roids, or whatever he said along those lines to Turkey Neck Gammons, now he changes that story in a matter of 7 days to say it was his cousin. I think he if hadn't done that, or said he doesn't feel the need to get anyone else involved in his mea culpa, then that would have been the end of that. But, since new players are now involved then the story only gets more salacious. No?

I thought Pete Abe's advice to ARod was great, it was real simple. Now Cashman is unhappy because this means the story will only linger. I'm unhappy because I know it'll linger and I can see why, I won't sit here and rip the media for doing their job. It is ARod's creation, he has to live with it, never did I believe 24 + 1 label but now I see why Steve Phillips said that. It's true, there are all these players AND ARod.

It's got so insane that ARod has his own crawler on ESPN. Effen amazing. But all people want to do is blame the ugly world around ARod, but not ARod. This is no longer his abortion, but the abortion of the fans and team to deal with. It effen sucks, I want it to go away as much as anyone, but ARod can't let it go away himself so we are stuck with discussing it for at least the next 9 years.

[26] I'm not so sure that it's a clear violation of his right to privacy.

Rodriguez's right to keep medical information is superseded, at least in part, by the subpoena. As I understand it, the information now essentially belongs to the court, not to him. It's kept secret by court order, and leaking the name was a clear violation of that order - but that's a different story, and not obviously a violation of his privacy rights.

There's also some question as to whether Fourth Amendment rights might have been violated when the information was seized, but that's got nothing to do with Roberts.

[17] Hooray! Thanks, rbj. That's something to look forward to.

To Dimelo
was he influenced by hard-core Islam? Did he ever think of of joining Heaven’s Gate?
The Rod might have been the 21st hijacker.
What kind of racist crap is this??? What does religon (especially Isalm) have to do with A-Rod!!! Get your head out of your A!". A_Rod is a jerk and made a stupid mistake. Ah you haven't??? I guess you are perfect get off your horse and kiss my A!"#¤¤. Attack A-Roid for being dumb stupid greedy but what the f does this have to do with 9/11. Get a freaking life

[30] As well as being "stuck" with his production too. Gosh, that sure will suck! If you are sick of it and don't want to think about it, how about, um, not reading about it or thinking about it?

[33] I think you may be a bit out of your depth here.

[31] But, on the other hand, the gov't only had a subpoena to seize information directly related to the Balco case, which that list was not. Not to mention that the entire agreement between MLBPA and MLB was based on anonymous testing, which somehow it turned out not to be. As an individual and a member of the MLBPA, I think ARod would have legitimate beef as a privacy issue.

In more somber NY-sports-related news, former Giants linebacker Brad Van Pelt has passed away at 57 from a heart attack.

http://tinyurl.com/aqub8n

[33] Racist? RACIST? What planet are you from? YOU DICK! I never said anything racist, but you're too stupid to see that.

I was trying to add some levity there, by making light of the fact that he said he was easily influenced through those years. Maybe you haven't been paying attention to current events, the number of young people that get easily influenced by extreme and fanatical Islam is a fact. I was trying to find out what else ARod was influenced by. If you can't see that, then gfy!

[33], [38]

OK .... that's enough name-calling!

[39] Diane, sorry...but calling someone a racist or insinuating someone is better be proven w/o a reasonable doubt.

Long before steroids, Arod's sincerity and credibility had been questioned by both fans and journalists. When the guy who claims out loud to be better than everyone (gets up earlier, works out harder, hits better, defends better) is then shown to have done it in a slimy fraudulent way, of course people will pile up on him. That's poetic justice.

Personally, I despise Arod and always have and when I see this kind of thing, it confirms my disgust with his smarmy insincere and overwhelmingly approval seeking demeanor. But there always has to be a bad guy. And it's not like a I dislike the guy more than darth vader. But the journalistic and popular response must be taken in the context of the fraud he has seemed to be perpetrating.

I'm gonna take this from the now-departed "Dodger Thoughts" back at the Toaster:

Thank You For Not ...

1) using profanity or any euphemisms for profanity
2) personally attacking other commenters
3) baiting other commenters
4) arguing for the sake of arguing
5) discussing politics
6) using hyperbole when something less will suffice
7) using sarcasm in a way that can be misinterpreted negatively
8) making the same point over and over again
9) typing "no-hitter" or "perfect game" to describe either in progress
10) being annoyed by the existence of this list
11) commenting under the obvious influence
12) claiming your opinion isn't allowed when it's just being disagreed with

This blog is Alex's baby, and I'm sure he'd agree with most if not all of these items.

ny2 (and Diane) thanks for the link to the Glanville. An interesting, well-put angle on all of this.

Yes [33] is rather over the top, but Dimelo, you have been going way hard on Rodriguez here and swearing about it, too, eventually over-the-top comes back, especially on the web, even in an outpost of civility like the Banter. I feel like saying 'this is just baseball' but it really isn't, on this topic, it cuts to ethics, law, privacy, media manipulation. Hell, when's the exam?

I like Glanville on his sense of the man, and here:

"In the end, it isn’t about Alex Rodriguez, though we are making it about him. He must be in quite a dark place, because he could always rely on the authenticity of his talent to overcome any criticism of his civilian self. Now that is gone, and I am sure the public will exact a price from him for years to come. Sure, all this has come about because of certain choices he made, but he was outed by forces beyond his control, in a way that was not honorable. That is not good for any of those 1,200 players who were tested. That is not good for anyone. And why focus on Alex Rodriquez and not the other 103? Why weren’t there leaks about everyone?"

And I agree with OYF (as often) up to the point where he says 'he should have refused a press conference' ... in today's world, that's hard to do. The unfortunate part, as I posted earlier today on the previous thread, is that avoiding the press yesterday (or going dark on them from here out) is a waste of time ... the BOOK is coming out. Soon.

[42] LOVE #9.

Hey all,

Leave it A Rod to force me to address something that I've been meaning to talk about for a long time. It's my own laziness that it hasn't been handled yet.

Guidelines for the comments. Cliff and I were just talking about this last week. And thanks Diane for listing Jon Weisman's rules of conduct from Dodger Thoughts. We might not do exactly like that, however, the bottom line in here is that we can agree to disagree but never should any attacks become personal.

Swedski, you crossed the line with your accusations at Dimelo, who is a longtime commentor here. In the future, any comment like that will simply be deleted. D, you shouldn't have taken the bait and reacted. I understand why you would though as calling someone as racist is a serious charge.

I realize things can get charged up when talking baseball, and I'm all for different opinions but c'mon, let's keep it sane.

The definition of banter: to speak to or address in a witty and teasing manner.

That works.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could go the rest of the year without having to hear about A-Rod's problems?

A good friend of mine sent me the following e-mail and I think he nailed it:

"The problem with A-Rod is the problem with 90 percent of these goofs: They're overindulged babies. When things get really tough -- and I'm not talking about facing 100-mile-an-hour heat -- they fold like a Gypsy tent. No backbone, no dignity, no moral underpinning, no intellectual courage. And it's not just baseball, it's every sport. And if it weren't steroids that were proving it, it would be something else.

The closer you get to these guys, the less you want to know them.

Admire them from afar, and no more."

[42] My only disagreement is if #9 is happening to the Yankees. Then I'll remark on the no-hitter or shutout.

ARod may as well just hire a spokesperson to address the media. It's clear he wants so desperately to do and say the right things for appearance sake, but there was nary a hint of genuine emotion in that press conference. And in the end, so what. Based on all the disingenuous comments ARod has made in his professional life, did we really expect it to be any different than it was?

I thought a comment made on MLB radio on XM (Holden Kushner, I think) was on the money. It's great that some of MLB's finest are getting fired up about being lumped in with the cheaters, but don't tell us, tell your union that you as a group want stricter testing (blood tests for HGH) and stiffer penalties (1 year suspensions) for cheating. It is known that the Players Association has stonewalled on the drug testing issue for years. Walk the walk.

Hiring a spokesman would take some of the attention off Alex Rodriguez. Alex Rodriguez would never do that.

[48] I think that is the bottom line. The myth is over. The sooner we tell our kids that these athletes might be talented, but like everyone, they come with flaws, some more than others, then we can go about distancing ourselves.

Admire them for their natural ability that they harnessed and developed and leave it at that. And it's not just sports, it's the arts well. Hollyood, the music industry is one big goof fest.

[49] Yes, agreed on that - we've done that many times in past game threads to try to get the Yanks out of being no-hit or shut-out. I seem to recall people treading carefully if a no-hitter (or prefect game) that didn't involve the Yanks (like the one start Karstens made after the trade).

I'm also pretty sure that (1), (4), and (8) have been violated more times than any of us could count. ;)

Shaun,

I think (11) may be more than any other combined.

Just saw this on ESPN:

"Boston Red Sox owner John Henry is renewing his call for a baseball salary cap." (http://tinyurl.com/cqqa4u)

Ladies and gentlemen, Bud Selig's stooge, John Henry! (Feeling the economic crunch Mr. Henry, are you?)

I also loved how the article mentioned the exact amount of money the Yanks spent on free agents ($400M plus), with no mention that some of the money might not get paid (if CC opts out) and that the vast majority of it is spread out over 5, 7, and 8 years, respectively - but then said that "the Red Sox gave out much shorter and cheaper deals." No shit sherlock, the Red Sox didn't sign anyone in or close to the class of AJ, CC, or Tex. Gotta love the AP!

In other news, Shea Stadium is today officially a memory ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/sports/baseball/19shea.html?hp

[45] I'm cool. Sorry about that, Diane and Alex.

[43] Over the top, really? Aiight!

[56] They made pretty quick work of it. I had been trying to get over there to snap some pictures, but I haven't had the time.

You could see both stadiums from the 6 train right before the turn into the Whitlock Ave station. I noticed last weekend that Shea was just about gone.

Alex, 'overindulged babies' is a harsher way of putting the point I was making about the near-impossibility of having a 'normal life or character when you're adored and insanely wealthy in your early to mid-twenties. This applies to celebs of all kinds. Add to our obsession/adoration the quick way we turn (in some cases) to rage or hatred (with little data to go on, too) and you get a really messy dynamic.

In a way we're all saying 'Say it ain't so, Joe.' We want to be able to just cheer.

But I want to disagree a bit on the 'lack of emotion' or the prepared nature of a press conference. Since when do we have a right to emotion? To some guy being out there groveling for us? Or for the pack of reporters? OYF goes further than me, says they should never have had the press conference. I'm all right with having it (too hard NOT to, today) but I don't see why the ability to cry on cue means anything more than ... what it is.

If I were Alex Rodriguez today I'd be brutally depressed and genuinely angry at carrying this alone, and with a tell-all book on the way to add to it. Did he invite trouble 5-8 years ago. Sure he did. Was he alone? Not a chance. Is he alone now? Sure is. And we want him to do an Oprah-style breaking down beside Brian Cashman? Girardi comes over to hug him? Hell, we're even busily saying the moment that really did look emotional is ... fake! HAS to be fake, everyone knows he's a fake.

I think it is worth reading that Glanville piece and profile if you haven't.

I actually think A-Rod is a lot closer to the puppy that keeps peeing on the rug. It can't help itself, it doesn't really understand that its doing something wrong, and it doesn't understand why its owner yells at it when it does that. But at the end of the day, even if the pupppy has its owner at his wits end, he'd never dream of giving the puppy away.

[60]

bow wow wow yippie yo yippie yay

What'd I miss? >;)

IMO, the perception of Alex is completely skewed by the 2004 ALCS collapse, the responsibility for which is widely shared among the players and the manager.

If the Yankees had won that series and the subsequent one, no one would be calling Alex a choker, and much of the scrutiny and criticism that flows from that (distorted) accusation would have been mooted.