The Yankees have been saying that if “everything goes well,” Alex Rodriguez will return to the team on May 8, arriving in Baltimore after this current homestand. A-Rod’s been racing against the release of Selena Roberts’s highly anticipated A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez, scheduled for release by HarperCollins on May 12. This morning, the book won: Someone leaked it to the Daily News.
And according to the Daily News, it is juicy. Roberts, who was furiously finishing the book earlier this month, has attempted to make clear that the project is not a hit job, that it’s not full of “salacious” details. That may be true: The Daily News de-emphasizes rumors that the book would delve into the seamier side of A-Rod’s “she-male, muscular type” love life. But there appears to be plenty of dirt. The main five takeaways everyone will be talking about today, in order of cable-news-show minutes taken up:
1.A-Rod used steroids while with the Yankees. A-Rod had claimed his steroid use was limited to 2001–2003, when he played for the Rangers. The book suggests otherwise, quoting an unnamed Yankee saying that A-Rod was seen with Kevin Brown “with HGH” — whatever that means: Did they pose for a picture? — in 2004, and that the fifteen pounds A-Rod gained in the 2005 offseason led him to be known as “bitch tits” by his teammates. (“Round pectorals” are known to be a side effect of anabolic steroid use.) Though this is A-Rod, the guy who admits to being made fun of more than anyone else on the Yankees, and it’s possible they were just calling him that anyway.
2.He used steroids in high school. A high-school teammate says everyone on his Westminster Christian High School knew A-Rod was using back in the early nineties, a time when steroids weren’t even prevalent in the major leagues (at least, that’s what everyone thinks). He added 25 pounds of muscle between his sophomore and junior seasons, though that would make him 16 years old, when that sort of thing can happen anyway. His source was supposedly from a “dog kennel.”
3. Jose Canseco thought he used steroids. This, of course, isn’t a revelation at all, considering Canseco has accused A-Rod of steroid use in just about every medium for about five years now. It’s just amusing that Roberts is using Canseco as a primary source. Perhaps Canseco, for his part, thought she could help him in his acting career, or at least with some stray cash.
4. A-Rod cared more about his stats than winning. Well, kind of: Roberts discloses that A-Rod enjoyed “pitch-tipping” — giving opposing hitters clues on what pitch was coming in games where the outcome was already decided so they could pad their stats — with the expectation that they would do the same for him. This seems nefarious but, frankly, something that has probably been going on in baseball for 100 years.
5. He only tipped 15 percent when he went to Hooters. The horror!
Anyway, A-Rod’s coming back very soon, and he’s bringing all this with him. All the talk of overpriced seating, wind tunnels, and Chien-Ming Wang is going to seem rather quaint and innocent in about a week.
A-Rod took steroids while with Yankees, and as teen, claims new book [NYDN]
