Preaching from the pulpit on a Sunday
I don’t know if I’m the only one who thinks this way, but enough is enough with the whole Alex Rodriguez thing. Secretariat died nearly 20 years ago, and the last time I checked no one was still beating him to death. However, I have a feeling A-Rod and his various transgressions will be billy clubbed ad nauseum for the test of time because it sells papers and it will sell books apparently.
I, on the other hand, will not be partaking in the drivel that Selena Roberts has penned. I give her a TON of journalistic credit for being able to get Rodriguez’ name out of the 104 that tested positive for performance enhancers back in 2003. It turned the baseball world upside down, because Rodriguez was supposed to be the poster boy for clean players, and he was supposed to take us all away from the specter of steroids.
Some of the other stuff she is writing about though in her book we already knew and shouldn’t come as a surprise. She isn’t really breaking any news here. Although if you watch any of the news networks, news breaks and apparently its breaking all day. One of my pet peeves. If it breaks at 10 a.m., its not still breaking at 4pm. That drives me absolutely nuts. Sorry for the sidebar.
Okay so here are some of her gems from the book, which I saw today via the New York Post. A-Rod visits strip clubs, A-Rod is insecure, A-Rod is in constant competition with Derek Jeter, A-Rod bragged to teammates about being with Madonna, and A-Rod ALLEGEDLY took steroids in high school.
A ball player in a strip club? Wow! I’m shocked! He wore a Yankee hat to scream look at me?! Again, “Elizabeth, it’s the big one! I’m comin!” You think Alex Rodriguez isn’t going to be recognized if he wears a cowboy hat? A-Rod is insecure? That’s a newsflash, aren’t we all a little insecure? He’s in constant competition with Derek Jeter? You don’t say! Wouldn’t you want to measure up to what Jeter has accomplished? A-Rod bragged to his teammates about dating Madonna? Is she 50, yes, but as one of my friends told me,”It’s still freakin Madonna!” Finally, A-Rod ALLEGEDLY took steroids in high school? No concrete evidence to go on, yet it was still printed. That is NOT journalism.
That IS National Enquirer type stuff and I leave that stuff to the same people that read that garbage. I can care less if Brittany Spears held her baby while driving her car. I could care less if Kirstie Alley is 80 pounds overweight. I won’t lose any sleep if Jessica Simpson and Tony Romo are on the rocks, or if Brangelina got into a fight about having their 20th kid. I’m not going to sit at home on my weekend off and worry about millionaires in Hollywood with their goofy little problems, or how Alex Rodriguez was in a strip club in Dallas with a Yankee hat on.
A-Rod had a press conference, he apologized for using performance enhancers, and he is working with Don Hooton’s foundation. Hooton’s 17 year old son Taylor’s steroid use led to his suicide.
Is Alex Rodriguez perfect? Are you perfect? Let he who hath not sinned, cast the first stone. Put it down, and walk away.
Off The Wall with Chris Shearn 
Is it possible to agree 110%?! Great stuff Chris. Everyone, just walk away. Selena – GO AWAY!
Maybe as a Yankee fan I’m biased…but seriously c’mon. I’ve never been an A-Rod fan, but lately I’ve come to feel for him more and more! I made a comment on Kim’s blog to this effect…This seems personal and someone trying to make a buck off Alex.
Rumors down here from A-Rod’s gym…Selena Roberts had come in multiple times trying to get Alex to buy her off. She wanted $$$ to keep from printing the initial steroid story. Thats integrity?
Breaking News!…..this breaking news happened a year ago. Pffffft.
It doesn’t even amount to anything anymore. The damage has been done already. Selena can come out with a story that A-Rod juiced with midgets and circus clowns from Cirque du Soleil, and the outcome doesn’t change.
Way too much energy is being used on this issue. The train has already wrecked in the proverbial sense.
Thanks for checking in everyone…Happy Sunday…See you for BPTV tomorrow at 6 before the Yankees and Red Sox kick off their first ever series at the stadium.
I concur completely Chris and agree with the message but it was still nice to see it in print from someone. I know what you mean about the media and the “breaking news” thing, really tiresome and easy to turnoff for me.
I see what your saying Chris, and I too am tired of all this A-rod stuff. But I am also sick of A-rod himself and his distractions.
Hey, I hear the Mets fans are sick of David Wright. Do you think it would be possible to do a clean trade, A-roid for D-Wright?
Chris, this has got to be the best thing I have read on this issue so far. Right on!!! I am behind A-Rod’s desire to, from now on, focus only on baseball and in the past few weeks, he seems to be sticking to that. This book will make that more difficult but I think he will stick to that promise to himself. It is time to leave the past in the past and move on. As for the previous statement by bakekrukow, I think he or she missed your point. This distraction this time is Selana’s doing, A-rod’s.
Sorry, my bad. I meant to say the distraction this time is Selena’s doing, and not A-Rod’s.
The one comment that truly annoys me about A-Rod is that he wants everyone to like or love him and requires being the center of attention. A-Rods father split on him when he was a little a boy, I believe around five years old. Any child that this happens to is guaranteed to have psychological problems of that sort. I know it happened to me. I played ball in high school and college and the slightest criticism or being yelled at by the coach would bring me to tears. I would do anything I could to be the best and the center of attention. Later in life I saw a shrink and he said I wouldn’t be normal if I didn’t have problems from loss of a Father. Let’s give A-Rod a break; we don’t know the pain he’s in.
Thank you, Chris for making this comment as a journalist, which I have been making as just a Yankee and baseball fan. Leave Arod alone, unless you have been perfect. And even if he wasn’t 100% honest in his comments, so what. He was on the list that should not have come out. Yes Selena Roberts picked his name out of the list and was right. Where are the other 103 names? If she found that out, that would be news. What Arod did in high school (even if we knew for 100% sure, which we don’t since there is no corroboration) so what. Isn’t an impartial journalist supposed to have more than one unnamed source to make an accusation like that in a book? Well, we know that she is not an impartial journalist, she is trying to get as much dirt on Arod as she can to sell her trashy book. Why does she write for Sports Illustrated and not the National Enquirer? I stopped my subscription to Sports Illustrated just for that reason. I wish a lot more people would also, to let them now we want sports news not sports trash.
I’m a Yankee fan but I’m constantly amazed at how the apologists want to sweep the ARod story under the rug and are trying to smear the messenger in the process.
Alex has tried to present himself as the ultimate superstar, seemingly above the sport at times (hello, have we forgotten his announcement during the World Series about his opt out?).
As such, he’s opened himself up to books like this. I’ll read it the same way one would read Kitty Kelley’s books about Frank Sinatra and Princess Diana.
And how people can dismiss that he may have lied about his use of performance enhancing drugs is scary and just says a lot about some baseball fans and what’s wrong with the sport in the first place. Too many fans just want to look the other way.
He was lying to us then and he’s lying to us now. You can look the other way all you want but then spare me the big cheers when/if he hits big homers to win a game.
The man is a walking, talking riddle. And in this case you can’t separate the on the field from what’s going on off the field. We all know he’s a head case.
Alex and his team have presented Alex as a brand of perfection. The reality is anything but.
First of all, how can any sane person not be tired of A-rod stories? However, we go through this every year–Madonna, divorce, DJ doesn’t love me, whatever. I feel bad because there are so many good Yankee stories this year and his return will reduce them to footnotes in the news stories. Also, whoever is trying to keep him out of the HOF is about 15 years too early. In the next 10 years, A-rod will put up such awesome numbers AND do so much good for kids (both for the right reasons and for PR), that his transgressions will be almost forgotten, or at most, hazy memories. Timing is everything, and I am sure Mark M, Barry B, Roger C, et al realize this.
one word: AMEN.
– V [ http://flairforthedramatic.mlblogs.com ]
Well put, Chris. I really enjoy reading how you tie-in your viewpoint with some excellent quotes.
Chris,I have been sick of this for months.Nice job.The point about the other 103 guys on that list is never mentioned by sports”journalists”.I don’t need for their names to be listed but one guy who is in on that list is David Ortiz.The same guy that got all religious before the season on the issue of steroids.The same guy that spoke of special shakes in the DR.The guy with the same trainor in the DR as Arod.The same guy who has not hit a homer into the first week of May.Why hasn’t any “jounalist brought this up.Well,because everyone loves Papi,the friendly teddy bear.I say fine,let it all lay and let’s all move on but to the phonies of the media I say take a long look in the mirror and you are staring at hypocrisy.
Chris, you hit it right on the head. I am so tired of hearing about this, not only about the book, but every slow news day a columnist or two dredges up more old news about A-Rod. I’m not a huge A-Rod fan, but I’ve become more of one because I feel he is taking the brunt of something that is rampant in sports. What about Miguel Tejada? He just got probation for lying. He makes a lot of money too. Why does he get such a walk? I don’t think that A-Rod is very bright, but enough is enough.
Right no one is perfect, probably many peoples envy Alex but who cares leave him alone and live with you own miseries
Right no one is perfect, probably many peoples envy Alex but who cares leave him alone and live with you own miseries
THE YANKEES SIGNED UP FOR ALL THE A-ROD CIRCUS WHEN THEY WENT AND SIGNED HIM AFTER OPTING OUT. GET OVER THE FACT THAT THIS CIRCUS IS HERE TO STAY. EVERYONE WAS AWARE OF ALL A-ROD’S DISTRACTIONS. THE TEAM SUFFERS BECAUSE OF HIM AND THE YANKESS UNFORTUNATELY WILL SUFFER FOR 8 MORE YEARS. AND TO TOP IT OFF HE ISN’T EVEN THE PLAYER THE YANKEES SOLD THEIR SOUL FOR. THE YANKEES LET HIOM BECOME BIGGER THAN THE TEAM. SO EVERY YANKEE FAN HAS TO STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT ALL THE A-ROD ANTICS, MOST WANTED HIM HERE AND STILL DO !!! ME OF COURSE, NEVER LIKED HIM AND HAS TO SUFFER EVERY TIME I HEAR HOW GREAT HE IS ( HA-HA)
HATS-ALL-FOLKS.COM
Hey Chris! BREAKING NEWS!!!!! KC’s in first…lol.
Love your writes!
http://yankeemeg.mlblogs.com/
Riot on, Chris! So much of what he’s done is not commendable but who’s life could stand up to 100% scrutiny 24/7????? Name one person, please! Thank you, we now have the complete list (zero) so let’s drop this ****. No way should PED use be condoned but neither should making millions off an over investigated *******. And I am STILL waiting to hear why only one name of 104 was leaked. Why didn’t they leak the name of some long ago released backup catcher? For one reason: there’s no money there.
Hi Chris
I think the problim with serina this is the only way she can get in the locker room and weight room to see men so she likes to look a a-Rod.Any one else and there would be no book.get the other 103 names and then wright a book.some one might care.i feel it is just Yankee bashing thru A-Rod.
Ron in Syracuse
Good article Chris, And to all you so-called fans who are sick of hearing and reading about A-Rod here’s this:::: The ones you should be totally sick of are these “”””PUKES””” who call themself’s sports writers!!!! Heyman ,Costa, Oberman, Verdummy, and the top one is the so called sports mag SI. I quit buying the SI a long time ago. Let’s see how “””MISS PIGGY’S”” book on A-Rod sells. She says A-Rod will survive her rooting in the “”TROUGH”” with the rest of her piggy writers. Most of the jerks that blog their hatered for A-Rod are BOSUCKS fans. They are still P.O. that they couldn’t sign him oe Tex. They got the s—-y end of the stick.
Thanks, Chris, for a great article! I, too, am sick of reading about all of the things being said about A-rod. So, he’s not perfect, neither am I! I don’t read any articles about him anymore, it’s just not worth the aggravation. I won’t read Joe Torre’s book, either.
Gina from Syracuse