Daily Archives: February 18, 2009

A couple of items to attend to before getting into the article:
1) Thank you for the well-wishes in the BB community following my last post. My daughter was born Thursday, February 5, at 8:32 a.m. EST. She has a tremendous set of lungs and long fingers. I think she’s going to be a singer-songwriter, maybe a prodigy like Alicia Keys.
2) Cliff, Alex and Diane have done a kickass job here following the A-Rod story and keeping everything strong.
3) I’m back on schedule now. Welcome to Spring Training!

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I’ve been watching Tim Roth’s new show on FOX, “Lie To Me.” The premise: Roth, as Dr. Lightman, heads a private company that assists in federal criminal cases, using scientific studies in body language and facial expressions to determine whether a suspect is lying. At various points in an episode, still photos of Sarah Palin, O.J. Simpson, etc., are shown to demonstrate how in real life, facial expressions can communicate emotion and in turn, veracity or falsehood of statements.
Far-fetched? Depends on your point of view. Provocative? Certainly.
In the three weeks since the show premiered, the A-Rod situation has blown up, and I’ve begun thinking about the show more and more, and yesterday’s press conference gave a perfect opportunity to role play and try to apply some of the science to breaking down what was a brilliantly staged spectacle.
“Hard to Believe” was the headline on ESPN.com. It’s a great headline because of the many ways it can be interpreted. Hard to believe A-Rod was being honest? Jayson Stark thinks so, as illustrated below in Diane Firstman’s excerpt. Hard to believe A-Rod read his statements so stiffly, as if he’d never rehearsed them? Hard to believe that he never mentioned the word “steroids” at all? Hard to believe that when asked if he considered what he did to be cheating, he dodged the answer and didn’t say anything definitive? (More on this later.) Hard to believe that he’s still trying to pull the “young and naïve” argument on us, and that he’s blaming his curiosity on not receiving higher education? Hard to believe he sold out his cousin? Hard to believe that he’s the scapegoat of the 104 players who tested positive in 2003? Hard to believe that Gene Orza of the MLBPA sold him out? Hard to believe that Bud Selig doesn’t want to take accountability for the state of the game breaking down, resurrecting itself, and breaking down again on his watch? Hard to believe A-Rod had no clue what Jamie Moyer said earlier this week? Hard to believe that this wasn’t a classic case of the media putting an athlete on a pedestal only to tear him down after learning of his transgressions? Hard to believe that a few callers dialed into Mike Francesa’s show and Michael Kay’s show yesterday afternoon buying into the Bill Madden theory that the Yankees should eat the remaining $270 million of his contract?

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Today’s news is brought to you by someone who knows how to properly admit the truth about his taking PEDs:

(I’m not gonna inundate you with A-Rod news conference links, because Alex and Cliff have done and will continue to provide related content.  But here are a couple to tide you over …)

• PeteAbe provides the text of Rodriguez’s opening statement (via the AP).
• Jayson Stark points out the inconsistencies in A-Rod’s answers to Gammons’ questions, and what he said at the news conference.  For example:

Nine days ago, A-Rod didn’t know what kind of drug (or drugs) he was taking — even though he says he took it for three years.

Now, nine days later, he knows it was something called “Boli.” Which, best we can tell, is another name for Primobolan, the exact drug he was asked point-blank by Gammons whether he had taken.

Nine days ago, there wasn’t one word uttered about any mysterious cousins who were procuring this stuff and helping him inject it. …

Nine days ago, A-Rod was implying that whatever he was taking, he was buying it down at the mall …

Now, he’s admitting his cousin was the one doing the purchasing. And although he continued to say this drug was bought “over the counter,” we now know that counter was located in the Dominican Republic …

Nine days ago, there was no mention of any other “substances.” But on Tuesday, Rodriguez admitted to ESPN’s Hannah Storm that he also used to take Ripped Fuel, which was later banned — at least in its original ephedra-based form — by both baseball and the FDA.

And nine days ago, Rodriguez was angrily accusing universally respected Sports Illustrated reporter Selena Roberts of “stalking” him. Now, it turns out, he just had a “misunderstanding of the facts.” So never mind.

Now let me ask you: Would a man whose mission was simply to tell the truth do that much zigzagging in a nine-day span? Sorry. That’s tough to accept.

[My take: Alex should have taken one more injection … truth serum.]

• Alan Schwarz of the Times blogged the A-Rod news conference, and had this to say at the end of it:

Rodriguez has said, in many different ways, “I’m ready to get this behind me.”….

I have my own personal Pete Rose Rule, named after the Hit King who denied he bet on baseball for (something like) 14 years before finally admitting it and saying, in effect, “It’s good to get this off my chest, and it’s time to move on.” Seems to me that if you admit to something after lying about it for 14 years, you get 14 years before others let you “move on.”

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