A-Roid & Gammons Interview Reactions (With A Special Guest Appearance)

Not sure if anybody caught this, but it looks like Serena Roberts really has been stalking him. Check it out.
I know. It's pretty bad. But there really aren't that many pictures of her to choose from and no good place for her to be "hiding".

Some notes about the interview:

• I love how before he mentioned Selena Roberts by name he referred to her as "that lady from Sports Illustrated"
• He said she actually tried to break into his house and had documentation from the Miami Police to prove it, but Gammons didn't even ask to see it.
  
• He only apologized to his fans in Texas. Um, fuck that. You better feel sorry that you dicked over all of your Yankee fans over too. Because when you are cashing in $5M of our money for every legend you pass on the home run list, it's just going to dredge this shit up. If the Yankees were drafting your contract this offseason, they'd take those milestone clauses out in 2/3 of a second.
• Fiji Water? Nice choice.

• I originally thought that the reason he said he didn't know what exactly he was taking is that it was illegal at the time, and didn't want to incriminate himself. However, Craig from Shysterball was nice enough to answer my email and set me straight:

Me: Quick Question: Would there be a legal reason that A-Rod isn't admitting he knew what he took? Because they are/were illegal, etc... It sounds pretty stupid otherwise.

Craig: Quick Answer: No real legal reason I can think of. Even if he was doing crack, the statute of limitations on 2003 using would have run by now. My guess is that, in the permissive 2003-era, it was simply a matter of guys saying "give me some juice" and not really knowing what, exactly, they were taking beyond broad categories such as HGH or steroids.

Makes sense. Listening to the full interview, you get the feeling that he might have been trying to seem innocent because saying "give me some juice" is a lot more "naive" than talking about stacking Primobolan.

Anyway that was some quality television and despite the ribbing I've given him, he did come across as pretty genuine and remorseful and handled it pretty much as well as I could have hoped for. We're on the right track. Before the 2007 season, he got that pathetic Jeter friendship "issue" out in the open and had a banner year. It's a new season, in The New Stadium, and it's an odd numbered year. I'm predicting big things for Professor Purple Lips this season.

The Many (Awkward) Faces Of Alex Rodriguez

This was too easy. For one thing, I sort of stole the idea from The Sports Hernia.

But really, any person on planet Earth would make a ton of retarded-looking faces when they are being grilled on SportsCenter in front of tens of millions of people about something of this magnitude. Luckily for most of us, we won't have to answer those questions and if we did, some asshole probably wouldn't take the time to take pictures of it with their digital camera off their HDTV, resize and crop them and upload them on to their shitty blog.

However, my job is to not take any of that into account and instead use these screen grabs to make fun of him on these here internets. I watched it in slow motion to select the proper frames, and he looked like he was literally being tortured.

Anyway, here it goes. These pictures make it look like just he recorded the most emotional Proactiv testimonial ever given. I omitted any further snarky comments because they're honestly not even necessary.

It has been far and away our most colorful day here at Fack Youk. Apologies to our black and white traditionalists (Schiff), but it was all original content.

Attaboy [Breaking News]

What About The HoF? [A-Roid]

One of the more interesting pieces of shrapnel from the A-Rod bomb is what impact this has on the Hall of Fame. Will 25% of the writers simply not vote for someone with PED issues? The Steroids Era promises to expose the HoF voting for the flawed, subjective system it is.

In ten years, who is still going to be above the fray? Jeter. Pedro. Maddux. Mussina. Rivera?

Rivera's rookie year in the Major Leagues was 1995, initially as a starting pitcher. He found mixed success, posting a 5–3 record and 5.51 ERA that year. As a result, he split time between the Yankees and their AAA affiliate in Columbus. As a 25 year-old rookie with major arm surgery in his past, Rivera's role on the team was not guaranteed. The Yankees considered trading Rivera to the Detroit Tigers for David Wells. However, a surprise improvement prompted a change of heart. In one minor league start, Rivera suddenly began throwing 95–96 MPH. Rivera started ten games for the Yankees that season, participating in a two-hit shutout of the Chicago White Sox on July 4, in which he recorded a career-high eleven strikeouts. Rivera's sudden improvement and his success in the 1995 American League Division Series, in which he pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings of relief, convinced Yankees' management to keep him and move him into the bullpen the following season.

Sounds pretty suspicious in hindsight doesn't it?

A-Rod tested positive for Primobolan. In her interview with Bob Costas on the MLB Network on Saturday, Selena Roberts said that it doesn't bulk you up like Winstrol or Deca-Durabolin and that it allows you retain 80% of your strength once you cycle off. Couple that with HGH (which Andy-facking-Pettitte was on) and the "Who's Juicing" game just got a whole lot more difficult.

Pudge Rodriguez is undoubtedly a HoF player numbers-wise and wasn't in the Mitchell Report, but I will literally bet you anything that he took steroids, HGH or something like that when he caught 144 games in the Texas heat, hit 35 home runs and slugged .558.

See what happens? When you don't even have to rely on changes in physical appearance (which Pudge certainly had), the cloud of suspicion broadens further still. As we've discussed before, baseball statistics are incredibly random and you can pretty much read any storyline you want on those tea leaves.

It's a divisive issue and everyone is going to have their own take. That includes the BBWAA writers. I think everyone should get in and being that it is a museum, just include the PED stuff in the exhibit. Pete Rose too. He existed. Leaving him out of the HoF doesn't remove him from baseball history and it isn't going to take the needle from Roger Clemens' ass or the veins from Barry Bonds' forehead.

Of course that's not how most of the crotchety old bastards like Murray Chass, who feel they are the sanctimonious gatekeepers of Cooperstown, are going to vote. I'm guessing that pretty soon the induction classes are going to be awfully small.

#105

Everyone is talking about how the other 103 players besides A-Rod on that list have to be sweating it out.

How about George Mitchell? The egg is already all over his face and when David Ortiz or any other Red Sock pops up on that list he's going to get an carton's worth more. There are 103 more names to come, it's going to happen. His "objectivity" will be destroyed and everything that went into the stupid fucking Mitchell Report will be called into question.

The only silver lining is that this makes Bud Selig look like even more of a ignoramus.

DO NOT HIRE RUSTY HARDIN

Hey Alex, just a quick bit of advice.

Admit it.

If you deny this, the questions will pile up, reporters will never leave you alone, and your life will be a living hell. Look at Clemens. Now look in the mirror. Be the first big star to own up. Trust me.

Shyster's take.
Will Carroll's take.

Nixon, Bonds, Belichick, A-Rod [Breaking News]

All cheated but none had to.

More to come.

Number of Day Until Spring Training: Alex Rodriguez (#13)

Special guest appearance courtesy of New Stadium Insider.

• Professor Purple Lips
• Double Play-Rod
  
• Mr. 162
  
• Madonna's Prima Donna
• The Ace Of April
• The Gay Of May
• The Queen Of 13
  
• The Big Frosted Tipper
• Lightning Rod
• ICR
  
• The Turd At Third
• Stray-Rod
  
• Alice Rodriguez
• And most recently, A-Fraud

[Ed. Note: Joe, Frank & I might have made some of those up]

The man has a lot of demeaning nicknames for a 3 time MVP with the career trajectory and guaranteed contract that put him on pace to break the all-time home runs record, primarily as a shortstop and third baseman.

The best seats I ever had to a Yankee game were about six rows back from the Yanks' batter's box. The game had been rained out the night before and I was still playing online poker for a "living", so I was more than happy to rearrange my so-called schedule and scoop them up. Chien-Ming Wang threw 7 2/3IP of scoreless ball en route to a win over the Tigers (A-Rod went 0-3 and reached on a wild pitch).

In A-Rod's first time up, he grounded into a double play. When he was standing in the on-deck circle before his second at bat in the home half of the fourth, a guy in front of us got up and yelled, "ANDY RODDICK IS THE REAL A-ROD!!!". He was a Yankees fan.

Our 2007 Saturday package granted us the privilege of witnessing both his walk-off grand slam against the Orioles and his 500th career home run. Our seats were in Section 7, giving us the absolute perfect view down the left field line, and while everyone was still leaning to see if it was going to stay fair, we were already going apeshit.

I've been dreading writing this post ever since no one else claimed it a week and a half ago. There's too much to go into. The booing, the messy divorce, the Freudian implications of him dating Madonna, the Jeter friendship saga, and him playing for the Dominican Republic in the WBC despite never having lived there. Of course there were also his 2007 season, the above moments, the 2004 ALDS, and the home run he ripped off of the facing of the left field upper deck (watch).

Even during his blistering 2007 season, whenever he hit a dramatic home run, on his way to first base, he would still look into the dugout for approval.

Every Yankee fan has their own balance of love and hatred for him. I would place mine at about 70/30, respectively. It flipped to about 10/90 when he opted out of his contract during the '07 World Series. Usually what a player does off the field is not that big of a deal. It all comes down to what you do after the manager hands in the line-up card and before Kim Jones does her terrible post game interview.

But God Almighty, this fucker does his best to make you care. He is so polarizing, he polarizes people within themselves.

For better or for worse, the Yankees married A-Rod last offseason with the incentive-injected 10 year, $275M contract they extended to him. If he leaves the Yankees, it will make his divorce with Cynthia look tidy and private.

I would like to end this post by giving A-Rod the type of friendly advice that actual friendship, by nature, would preclude you from ever giving:

"Alex.

Dude.

You really need to break up with Madonna. Can you not see the writing on the wall? She is GOING TO RUIN YOUR FUCKING LIFE.

The last thing you need is to date someone with an ego that might be even bigger than yours. She's insane. The Kabbalah thing...

Bro, she fucked Dennis Rodman...

FIF-TEEN FUCK-ING YEARS A-GO."