By JOEL SHERMAN
TAMPA – This was the new story. This should not be confused with the old story, which was just eight days old, but was now treated by Alex Rodriguez and his handlers, lawyers and advisers like something wrinkled and useless and in need of being discarded. After all, even Team A-Rod could see how ludicrous the old story looks. He already was proven to have – among other things – gone 0-for-4 in charges against Sports Illustrated’s Selena Roberts and was beyond plausibility in suggesting that he found his illegal substance in an aisle at GNC.
So there was A-Rod to try again with the new story. His teammates came out in force at a mid-afternoon news conference to hear Rodriguez do what it feels like A-Rod does best: Attempt to clarify and complicate further, try to tell the truth and leave the impression that you have not done anything of the sort.
Because A-Rod’s new story about how he took steroids is now not the old story of, I don’t know when or how much. Instead, amazingly, it is even more implausible.
Rodriguez wants us to believe that a person who treats his body like a temple allowed: 1) a cousin – not a trained professional – to inject drugs described only as “boli” into his body. 2) The drugs came from the Dominican and, thus, have dubious oversight. 3) He was not sure that the drugs were being administered correctly or at the right intervals or if they were having any positive results. 4) Yet, he continued to take them twice a month, for six months for three years.
So let’s sum up: Fitness freak let’s untrained relative shoot drugs that the fitness freak cannot fully identify or vouch are safe into his body 36 times, though the fitness freak is not sure he is taking the drugs correctly or if they are having a positive result.
Does that sound possible for a player whose health is paramount to achievement – that he would let a mystery drug into his system? When faced with his own story – the new story – Rodriguez already was backtracking saying that twice a month was a ballpark figure. He then talked around the subject, an unsatisfying dance that never explained himself.