Doubts About A-Rod Book

Tyler Hissey writes about the A-Rod book:

Well, that did not take long.

Former New York Times columnist Selena Roberts found the scoop of her life earlier this winter. Roberts, now apparently an investigative reporter for Sports Illustrated, discovered that Alex Rodriguez was one of 104 players to test positive for the use of performance-enhancing drugs in an anonymous drug test conducted by Major League Baseball several years ago.

Now comes the book. And more allegations.

I have not read the book myself yet, as it just hit stores on Tuesday. So I do fear of falling into Joe Morgan territory, casting a critical eye on something I have not given a full look at. With that said, the reports about the sure-to-be-juicy bestseller contain information that does not seem all that credible, coming from numerous unnamed sources.

When I first heard the allegations about Rodriguez failing a drug test one Saturday morning back in February, I was initially skeptical of the report. And it had nothing to do with the player himself; really, at this point, there is not a single player out there who I would be surprised to learn experimented with PEDs during his career.

Rather, I was skeptical to the name attached to the byline. Roberts, then at the Times, fell victim to a clear-cut political and ideological agenda in her coverage of the Duke Lacrosse Case/Hoax. It was difficult not to question her journalistic integrity when reading her subjective vitriol and hatred directed at the members of the 2006 Blue Devil lacrosse team.

During my junior year of college, I wrote a paper about prosecutorial misconduct, with disgraced DA Mike Nifong as the main subject, for a criminal justice course. While researching the topic in great detail, I became just astonished at the rush to judgment among most prestigious academic institutions, including a certain 88 professors (and others who chimed in later) and the cowardly administration at Duke itself, as well as many prominent scribes in the mainstream media.

I quickly got hooked on K.C. Johnson's Durham in Wonderland blog, reading it on a regular basis in the way that I check out FanGraphs or MLB Trade Rumors every morning now. Johnson, a professor of history at Brooklyn College, took those who let political correctness trump objective facts--with evidence proving that the allegations against all three players were transparently false, to anybody without a vested interest or agenda in seeing the case go to trial, surfacing within weeks of the initial news reports--and used their column/position to spew falsehoods and, in some instances, slanderous attacks about the character of the entire team. Especially the three wrongfully accused student athletes: David Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Selligman.

And, of course, Johnson wrote about the biggest villain of the case, Nifong, a man whose names has since become synonymous with prosecutorial misconduct. His blog was the Fire Joe Morgan of the Duke case, if you will, a place where bias and unfair attacks on the Duke lacrosse team went to die.

One of the more egregious journalists to chime on the case and featured on the blog, though, was Roberts. So I doubted her claims at first, emailing Johnson to get his take. He wrote, "...I'm no fan of A-Rod, but the idea that anyone could trust anything that Selena Roberts says is, as you point out, absurd."

To my surprise--and though I was still a bit put off by the fact that she only produced one name, with 103 others who failed tests still out there--she got it right that time. A great pick up for her and Sports Illustrated.

With her latest round of A-Rod gossip, however, I am not so sure that there is any merit to her claims.

According to an Associated Press story that describes the book, Rodriguez began to use steroids in high school because he felt inadequate after his father left him as a child. Also, according to a former player quoted in the book, pitcher Kevin Brown and Rodriguez were seen "with ampoules of HGH in their possession at Yankee Stadium. " She relies on an unnamed source to back up that little tid bit, among many others.

Again, I do not for sure if he she is right or wrong in this particular instance.

But I have some serious doubts.

First, Roberts will obviously benefit from this book on a career and financial level. Similar to her coverage of the Duke case, it seems, she has an agenda that could have clouded her judgment with the Yankees star third baseman.

Perhaps most concerning, as mentioned earlier, Roberts relies mainly on unnamed sources. Putting aside that A-Rod has a lot of enemies who would love to take a shot at him--perhaps out of jealousy of his incredible talent--a reporter must have the trust of their readers if they do not have concrete evidence to back up a report. In round two of A-Rod vs. Roberts, she lacks any real proof in many of her most noteworthy findings.

So I will let you decide if Roberts is someone who can be trusted...