You knew it wasn't a good start to the day when Yankees PR man Jason Zillo started off Alex Rodriguez's press conference by announcing that no follow up questions would be taken during the Q & A portion of the day. It was all downhill from there.A-Rod opened a prepared statement that merely left us shaking our heads. He blamed, in part, an unnamed cousin who approached him about taking the substance. A substance that, despite being used multiple times over the next three years, A-Rod still did not consider to be illegal.
He repeatedly mentioned that it was an "over the counter" product, in an effort to down play its use. But he also mentioned that his cousin brought it in illegally from the Dominican Republic.
A-Rod, as he did with Peter Gammons, blamed youth and naivete for his mistakes, though he was inconsistent in mentioning what age he was when he did this or that. Within moments of each other, he mentioned his best season was in 2007 as a Yankee and then said it was when he was 19 years of age and playing in Seattle.
A-Rod's spin team brought in Don Hooten, whose son had committed suicide after years of steroid abuse, and who had been a fixture at the Congressional hearings on performance enhancing drugs. A-Rod vowed to help Hooten in his crusade to raise awareness of the harm of steroids.When it came to his teammates, A-Rod choked up for an orchestrated couple of minutes, before thanking them for their support.
When A-Rod was done, it was the reporters, primarily Yankees beat writers, turn to ask questions. But A-Rod continued his song and dance, giving variations of the same basic story, and silently thanking God for not having to take follow up questions.
He refused to name his cousin, saying it was unfair and "this" wasn't about said cousin. He stood by his story that MLBPA COO Gene Orza wasn't clear as to whether or not he had failed a drug test.
When asked about the allegations against Selena Roberts, A-Rod said he got confused, thinking the police report meant she had been cited. But after speaking with Roberts on the phone, all was good.
Youth, stupidity, naivete, dumb...all hollow words from a hollow guy.
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For some reason that I don't recall I was directed to your blog a few weeks ago. I read your bio at that time and became interested because you appeared to be in my age group and I thought you were a Yankee fan. Guess not. I had continued to read your posts daily and I voted in your polls but had no comments until today. Because of the tone you took with one of my players I will no longer be reading your blog. I won't resort to name calling as you do and I won't waste time explaining further other than to say that, even though we may be from a similar era, we were obviously raised differently.
ReplyDeletePeter, how is calling someone, "hollow", name calling? Youth, stupidity, naivete, dumb were terms that A-Rod used on himself.
ReplyDeleteI'm not buying what A-Rod is selling.
Sorry to see a loyal reader go.
Drew