Public Defender

You wouldn't know him by name, probably not even by face. But from 1996-2007, you saw him warming up pitchers in the Yankees bullpen. Mike Borzello has lived a life of baseball anonymity, but it has afforded him a chance to be the confidante of one of the greatest players in the game, Alex Rodriguez. It's from that relationship that Borzello can confidently say that Jose Canseco's claims about A-Rod are absurd. Borzello, now the Dodgers bullpen catcher, recently sat down with the NY Post's Joel Sherman to defend his friend.

"Nobody in the last four years, including his wife because she wasn't on the road, spent more time with Alex than I did,'' Borzello said by phone yesterday.

Canseco's book.

"In four years I was with him 24 hours a day, and not one time did I ever hear, see or get wind of anything having to do with performance enhancing drugs, steroids, HGH, anything," said Borzello, now the Dodgers' catching instructor. "No way, with as much as this guy trusted me, would he have kept that part of his life secret from me. He trusted me with everything, and I was with him every day all day long. It would have been impossible to show me everything behind the curtain except for this. He is not that bright to be able to pull that off.

"He talked to me about everything. If he had issues with Scott Boras, issues with Joe Torre, disagreements with other guys on the team, if he did or didn't like an acquisition the Yankees made. Real topics. Not what kind of juice he had with his breakfast that morning. And he didn't mention this, no way."

"I don't question him at all,'' Borzello said. "Some guys you say, 'Wow, he got big,' and you never saw them in the weightroom. [That player] does nothing and has 30 pounds of muscle and you go, 'That's fishy.' "

A-Rod? "No way,'' Borzello said. "He is unbelievable."

"You want to rip [Rodriguez] for the way he acts or the things he says, go ahead. There are enough people dumb enough now to say, 'See, he is on that stuff.' All you have to do is be accused. So yes, it does bother me. Because I've seen what this guy has done and seen how much it matters to him. No matter how tired it makes him or how grueling or rigorous the workout is, to be the best, he will do it. It means that much to him. I believe in him. I don't think he would have been stupid enough to do [steroids] to tarnish all that work."

Borzello did not know Rodriguez then (1990), but he describes a player who, A-Rod's lifelong friends will concur, will have an occasional beer, but mostly is "afraid of drugs and alcohol."

"I'm not saying he didn't do research on [steroids]. I'm sure he wanted to know what is making all of these other guys so good," Borzello said. "But all of us in his small, small circle would be blown away [if it was proved Rodriguez used steroids]. It would shock me to no end. If in four years this guy entrusted me with his entire life and this is what he kept from me. No way. I would never believe that."

Borzello's analogy to describe Canseco is pretty perfect.

This is Sammy 'The Bull' Gravano. He gets all the benefits of playing, and then when he can't play any more, he starts ratting out everyone to make money that way."

It remains to be seen whether A-Rod will defend himself or not.