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Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Sorry trail of A-Rod’s apology
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So how do you think New York is handling all this ruckus about Alex Rodriguez? You wouldn’t be surprised if I told you Gotham is roiling.
An examination of the great city’s sports sections reveals that A-Rod gets little cuddling, beginning with his contention that he tested positive because of some “tainted dietary substance.”
“Tough pill to swallow,” allows the Daily News, which launched columnist Mike Lupica to lay the wood to him.
“He is no better than Barry Bonds or any other drug cheat,” Lupica writes. “We’re supposed to buy this?” he continues with a blast of cynicism.
One of the conditions that A-Rod demanded in the deal he made with ESPN was that Peter Gammons be the interviewer, a veteran sports writer turned broadcaster. “Gammons came off like a defense attorney questioning his own client,” another Daily News columnist wrote.
The Daily News also throws a cloak of suspicion on the players’ union. “Orza Hardly Looking Clean” is the headline on a story indicating that Gene Orza, backup to Donald Fehr, the union leader, had an uncommon relationship with A-Rod and perhaps had tipped him off.
A Newsday columnist, Anthony Rieber, under a headline “Shooting Holes in A-Rod’s Apology,” wrote that the Yankee “did a great job of fooling the eternally naive.”
The Times, on the other hand, was typically Time-sy. It played the story rather straight-up, though George Vecsey, a veteran columnist, did write that “the apology by Rodriguez sounded trite.”
Meanwhile, there was another voice to be heard from in Texas, where A-Rod had come into his $250 million contract. Tom Hicks, Rangers owner, then a raw newcomer to baseball, said, “I feel deceived by Alex. Why should I believe that he didn’t start [using drugs] before he came to the Texas Rangers,.”
A-Rod did issue this apology: “I’m sorry for my fans in Texas. I’m sorry, just sorry.” Also, it would appear, sorry that he got caught, especially after denying in an interview on another network a while ago that he had used steroids of any kind.
Where does that put Major League Baseball? Where does that put Bud Selig, the $17.5 million-a-year commissioner? I’ll say this: That it leaves Henry Aaron right where he belongs — on top of the heap, the Home Run King of all time, unsullied in every way.
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