February 9, 2009

A-Rod "Admission" Masterful

Wasn't it refreshing to hear A-Rod come clean this afternoon in his interview with Peter Gammons? A-Rod never lied to Congress and he never filed a disastrous slander suit against his former trainer. Sure, he might have told a bald-faced lie or two to Katie Couric, but the tabloids have taught us that lying to women is as easy for A-Rod as hitting 40 homers each season.
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Innocent A-Rod (Superman I Smallville Scenes)
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At a closer glance, though, A-Rod's admission of guilt left a lot of loopholes. Really, A-Rod's statement is almost exactly the same as Jason Giambi's "I'm sorry for that thing I did that I can't talk about", but with slightly more detail. Check out these quotes and what they really say or don't say (transcript here).
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PETER GAMMONS: Alex, this weekend Sports Illustrated reported that in 2003 you tested positive for testosterone, an anabolic steroid known as Primobolan. What is the truth?

ALEX RODRIGUEZ: [Blames pressure of Texas contract]...And I did take a banned substance. You know, for that I'm very sorry and deeply regretful...[blames culture of baseball].

Evil A-Rod (Superman III/Richard Pryor Put Nicotine in Kryptonite Version)

So A-Rod was asked about testosterone and Primobolan, but he only admitted to taking "a banned substance." This gives him a bit of an out as he probably doesn't know what his test showed. If it was truly just a survey test, the positive players were probably not notified. If it turns out down the road that A-Rod only tested positive for testosterone, he can say with a straight face that it probably rubbed off of one of the muscular "female" strippers he is known to prefer. Or Madonna. Whichever.

A-Rod was then asked what substances he was taking, where he got them and who introduced him to them. He was able to dance around the issues without naming a single substance or even category of source. He also blamed GNC and the Texas Rangers organization, both of which are pretty safe scape goats. The only thing he seemed sure of was that he did whatever it was that he did between 2001 and 2004, and his career statistical arc proves that the steroids didn't do anything for him.

Somewhat Tarnished Yankee A-Rod (Superman Returns Deadbeat Dad Version)

Gammons asked A-Rod why he stopped, and A-Rod gave a heartwrenching story about an injury he suffered training in Arizona that made him stop and reconsider whatever it was he was putting in his body and whoever it was that he was associating with that provided said unknown substances, though now he can't remember what those substances were or who those people were.

Note: A side effect of steroid use is apparently memory loss.

The remainder of the interview offers just variations on the same theme. A-Rod takes responsibility for something, blames the "culture" for whatever it was that he did, and can't remember anything. Other talking points include "honesty", "gray area", and "kids".

A-Rod in the Playoffs

All in all, A-Rod spent quite a bit of time talking without actually saying anything. The only actual piece of new information that came out of this is that A-Rod is now on record saying he only used banned substances between 2001 and 2004. He told this to a reporter...in the same interview in which he admitted lying to a reporter. A-Rod gets all the "honesty" credit with none of the liability, which is the best possible outcome at this juncture.

Whoever coached him, whether it was Boras or another PR agent, earned their share of his fortune today.

7 Responses:

gpb said...

How fucking dare anyone out there make fun of ARod after all he has been through!

He hurt his image, he went through a divorce. He lost his fuckin house.

His wife turned out to hate that he likes muscular strippers, is an honest person, and now he’s disappointing all the young fans. All you people care about is….. readers and making money off of him.

HE’S A HUMAN! (ah! ooh!) What you don’t realize is that ARod is making you all this money and all you do is write a bunch of crap about him.

He hasn’t used steroids in years. Yankees fan demand “give me more” for a reason because all you people want is MORE! MORE-MORE, MORE: MORE!

LEAVE HIM ALONE! You are lucky he even played baseball for you BASTARDS!
LEAVE AROD ALONE!…..Please.

Jose Canseco talked about steroid use and said if ARod wasn’t a user he would’ve eaten an entire goat no matter what.

Speaking of professionalism, when is it professional to publicly bash someone who is going through a hard time.

Leave ARod Alone Please…. !
Leave Alex Rodriguez alone!…right now!….I mean it.!

Anyone that has a problem with him you deal with me, because he is not well right now.

LEAVE HIM ALONE!
(original material credit to Leave Britney Alone chump)

J-Red said...

You need to drop some credit on Christian Bale for the professionalism part.

"ben" said...

A-Rod had ample time to prepare for this day, which he knew was coming. This played out almost exactly as I would have guessed to this point.

What I found to be very interesting, which I don't think you commented on, was his "that's pretty accurate" comment in response to when the steroid use occurred. Way to be definitive.

J-Red said...

Ben,

I started to harp on the "that's pretty accurate" thing, but he did later narrow it down to those years by saying it didn't happen before he got to Texas and that he stopped in 2003. I guess the only technicality is that he could have started again in 2003, though I think he covered that too.

A-Rod clearly has learned from the people before him, from Palmeiro, McGwire, Sosa, Tejada, Bonds and the other deniers/avoiders up to Giambi, Pettitte, and everyone else (usually caught) who were admitters/apologizers. His "admission" just further honed the Giambi/Pettitte approach.

Sarah said...

Wait -- A-Rod is making "you people" money?

J-Red said...

In theory. Keep coming back!

gpb said...

You'd have to have seen the video I was parodying to really laugh at all. I think the funniest part was when Russell asked me if it was really a man. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmvkRoEowc

Honestly, I'm not really surprised that he did. But the fact that he just boldly lied about it before and now feels like he did something wrong just makes me hate him more than I did before. And the fact he is "sorry" pisses me off even more.

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