The ARod Book

I checked Selena Roberts's book about Alex Rodriguez out from the library. I read it in one night. She's a good writer. The substance was a little thin. The three main topics were steroids, sex, and ego. That might seem interesting but the lack of first hand accounts really made for what may or may not be a heavy dose of speculation. I never read a book written like this before, with the bulk of facts attributed to unnamed sources.

On steroids, she says he used them in high school and cites his ability to benchpress 300 pounds as evidence. She set the stage for the same pressures Rodriguez claimed motivated him to use steroids after signing his $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers. She claims his performance in 2004 suffered because he went off the juice and his performance increased in 2007 because he went back on the juice. There's not really anything to persuade the reader either way of these speculations were it not for Rodriguez's confession.

The book mentions time and time again Rodriguez's interests in woman and his need for adulation. By now, these topics do not hold any revelations for most baseball fans. The most I learned was the man found himself in the Kaballah faith. Seems a book hardly worth reading, or writing really. Sure enough the reports are it sold only 16,000 out of 150,000 copies printed. That's more a reflection of the lack of interest in the topic (Alex Rodriguez is not a fan favorite) but the lack of hard stuff probably did not help either.