Alex Rodriguez (left) may have used steroids in high school and taken human growth hormone while with the Yankees due to a portrait of a deeply insecure man trying to cope with being abandoned by his father and obsessed with becoming a superstar. -- PHOTO: AFP
NEW YORK - JOURNALIST Selena Roberts makes the case that Alex Rodriguez likely used steroids in high school and may have taken human growth hormone while with the Yankees in her new biography of the Most Valuable Player, a portrait of a deeply insecure man trying to cope with being abandoned by his father and obsessed with becoming a superstar.
The release of A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez has been moved up to Monday because details of Rodriguez' possible drug use as a teenager and as a Yankee leaked out over the past week.
A-Rod admitted to drug use
Following Roberts' article on SI.com in February that said Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003 as part of baseball's anonymous survey, Rodriguez admitted using drugs from 2001-03 while with Texas.
Roberts concludes he likely had to have used steroids while in high school, before Seattle selected him with the top pick in the 1993 amateur draft.
But more interesting than the drug accusations is the psychological portrait of a needy Rodriguez desperately trying to create a lovable image yet wrecking it by running around with strippers, going to a 'swingers' club' and to illegal poker venues. Roberts called it 'a battle he is waging' that's made him a staple of the gossip pages.
'He went through a phase where, I think, and maybe he's still going through the phase, I don't know, where he really I think felt as if he had transcended baseball and reached a different level with the public, on a higher celebrity level, than he was as a ballplayer,' she said.
Rodriguez has refused comment, and Yankees manager Joe Girardi asked on Sunday why the book was even written.
In the book, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, Roberts traces much of the slugger's behavior to his father's decision to separate from the family when Alex was 10.
'I think like any child, you never want to be abandoned again. In order to sort of keep people near him, people close, please people, I think he always felt that he had to be better than good,' Roberts said in a telephone interview Sunday.
'I think in some ways he felt he had to be, you know, not just a great story, but a tall tale, something that was too good to be true in so many ways.'
For her, a key insight into A-Rod's character comes with what some might call a fib: He tells people he hit with wood bats in high school because that's what the pros use, even though she found photo evidence he used metal.
The pattern of embellishment and outright deceit continues through his admitted use of steroids in the major leagues, Roberts contends. -- AP
