Worse than steroids

It seems that Alex Rodriguez is now accused of something that will really lead to trouble for him: tipping pitches to opposing batters. But with all due respect to Doug Glanville, would such an egregious crime really be possible given the movement of players from team to team? Surely someone would have ratted him out long before Selena Roberts came knocking and you can bet his team's pitching staff would have been, ahem, displeased.

As for Roberts' overall charges, I think Steve Goldman fairly nails it (I'm so sick of hearing that Ms. Roberts is such "a respected writer" that her charges are unassailable).

Roberts has a weak track record in terms of thinking and knowledge of baseball, and she also led the charge against the Duke lacrosse players in the 2006 rape case, the one that ended with the prosecutor who brought charges being discharged. As Jason Whitlock wrote on Saturday, Roberts has never been called to account for these columns. Among her last words on the subject: "No one would want an innocent Duke player wronged or ruined by false charges -- and that may have occurred on Nifong's watch -- but the alleged crime and the culture are mutually exclusive... A dismissal doesn't mean forget everything. Amnesia would be a poor defense to the next act of athlete privilege."

Yes, let's look on the bright side, because jocks having slightly more restrained keg parties makes calling innocent young men rapists worthwhile.

I don't trust Roberts' judgment, I don't trust her understanding of baseball, and I don't trust her motives in writing a book about Alex Rodriguez that surely would not exist were it not intended to be a hit piece. If Rodriguez was juicing in high school or kindergarten, it goes to character, not performance, and we have had countless reasons to know that he's not Mother Theresa in the clubhouse or off the field. Neither were Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, et al. Cobb's reward was to die friendless, Ruth and Mantle died young, the causes of their cancer probably not unrelated to their youthful carousing, and Williams' own son had him decapitated and stuck in a freezer.

On the field, they all won their pennants, and for now that should be our main area of interest in regards to Mr. Rodriguez, because the personality stuff is off the slightest relevance. If Derek Jeter loves or hates Rodriguez matters less than this basic equation: Jeter singles and Rodriguez hits a home run. That's the only relationship, the only trust that needs to be between them -- and needs to be between Rodriguez and us.

Ya think?

One thing I am fairly certain of, Ms. Roberts has never much liked Mr. Rodriguez.

A-Rod’s Properties and Charity Suggest Some Stinginess

Rodriguez Is a Bauble A Champion Doesn't Need

No Longer Trying, Rodriguez Positions Himself for Success

Not a single story touched upon Alex Rodriguez's ability as a baseball player -- the only function for which he is paid and for which he has received three MVP awards, twice while wearing pinstripes.