The A-Rod go-round: the good, the bad and the NOT ugly
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
It didn’t take long for sports columnists to weigh in on the Alex Rodriguez news conference today -- the ‘my cousin did it’ defense. On SI.com, baseball writer Jon Heyman says the Yankees star needs to get his story straight:
‘I was young,’ he said many times. ‘I was stupid,’ he said almost as often. The problem, of course, is that he wasn’t that young. And that he isn’t that stupid. Rodriguez was a seven-year veteran when he and his cousin supposedly cooked up this ill-conceived scheme to transform the player everyone already conceded to be the best on the planet to be just a little bit better.
As for ESPN, the always loquacious Buster Olney had a lot to say, nothing of it negative, even referring to Rodriguez as Alex. Guess they know each pretty well. Here is Olney:
Later today, the LAT’s Bill Shaikin will weigh in, focusing on Rodruiguez’s tack today to get more involved in community service and suggesting that all eyes might not be on Rodriguez’s on-the-field performance but on whether he is a man of his word.
Finally, proving it’s not only women who rate the sexist ‘what they were wearing’ paragraph, the Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers had this nugget is his story:
Rodriguez, as stylish off the field as on, met with reporters dressed like he was going out for a casual dinner. He wore khaki slacks and a dark dress shirt. He had a red string bracelet on his left wrist, as often worn by followers of Kabbalah.
But then Rogers followed with this, which might called a sucker punch given the ‘what he was wearing’ paragraph:
Rodriguez wasn’t under oath in this news conference, as he may one day be during a formal interview with federal investigators. He may have been using his cousin to cover for someone in baseball or associated to his longtime agent, Scott Boras.
-- Debbie Goffa