A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez (33 page)

Read A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez Online

Authors: Selena Roberts

Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Biography

I’m beholden to the family members, friends, associates and teammates close to Alex for shedding light on his public and private personas with grace under what were, for some, very diffi cult and emotional circumstances at times. I’m also grateful to the people who, at considerable risk, shared information that was essential in 248

Acknowledgments

revealing the truth about steroids and Alex. Your efforts and courage never will be forgotten.

Many fi ne folks at
SI
deserve thanks, as well, especially Terry McDonell, whose guidance, support and faith made pursuing the story possible and fi nishing the book a reality. I will forever appreciate his patience. Thanks go to Larry Burke and Chris Stone for their determination in seeing the story through, as well as to Craig Neff, Mike Bevans, Chris Hunt and Hank Hersch for their invaluable direction. I’m also indebted to yet another terrifi c
SI
writer, Melissa Segura, for her insight into the Dominican baseball culture and her tireless reporting.

The sports-writing business is full of incredible people. Enormous gratitude goes to the talented Tom Verducci for being so generous with his time and knowledge, and to my good friend Har-vey Araton for indulging every neurotic phone call. The support from colleagues during the aftermath of the steroid piece on Alex was heartening and humbling. I owe many thanks—and lots of drinks—to the friends who had my back.

Over six months of reporting and writing, the book took numerous twists and turns that required the expert handling of HarperCollins executive editor David Hirshey, who stood by me all the way. My editor, Bob Roe, deftly navigated the rapid-fi re alterations right to the last minute. I couldn’t have made it through a rigorous production schedule and past the fi nish line without David, Bob, and George Quraishi. The man who remained cool through it all was my agent, Mark Reiter, whose humor became the elixir for many anxious days and nights. Will Reiter (yes, relation) emerged out of nowhere as a key asset, reading over the manuscript with a keen eye.

My family sacrifi ced the most during this book project while I vanished into my attic offi ce. Apologies to everyone for the cameo Christmas. To my mother, grandmother, Sally, Shawn, Sarah and Acknowledgments

249

Becca—and also to the entire Price clan—I offer a heartfelt thank-you. But no one deserves more gratitude for her unconditional love—and free therapy—than Laura, the best person I’ve ever known.

Notes on Sources

The information in this book is rooted in my coverage of Alex Rodriguez during my career at the
New York Times
through 2007

and a profi le project on the All-Star that I worked on with reporter David Epstein at
Sports Illustrated
during the Yankees’ 2008 season. The profi le evolved into a breaking news story for SI.com and
Sports Illustrated
in February 2009, when I nailed down evidence about Alex’s steroid use as a Texas Ranger in 2003, but a portrait of him remained to be written from the exhaustive interviews David and I gathered both before and after the doping revelations. Here are the people who were interviewed: Yonder Alonso, Jewel Ames, Fernando Arguelles, Joe Arriola, Brother Herb Baker, David Bar, Steve Butler, Jose Canseco, Brian Cashman, Joey Cora, Tim Crabtree, Jay Crotty, Chad Curtis, Joseph Dion, Susy Dunand, Carl Everett, Amy Fadhli, Jim Fannin, Kevin Fix, Jason Giambi, Burton Goldstein, Alex Gonzalez, San-252

Notes on Sources

dra Gonzalez, Bill Haselman, Tom Hicks, Randall Hill, Rich Hofman, Rudy Jaramillo, David Jordan, Andrea Kirby, Mike Lamb, Steve Law, Steve Ludt, Tom McEwen, Steven McLoughlin, Rosa Mendez, Mike Modano, Fernando Montes, Allan Nadler, Steve Phillips, Angel Presinal, Cal Ripken Jr., Juan Rivas, Victor Rodriguez, Victor Rodriguez Jr., Alex Rodriguez-Roig, Dodd Romero, Doreen Ruiz, Bud Selig, Ron Shapiro, Gary Sheffi eld, Buck Showalter, Stran Smith, Lorna Starr, Steve Swindal, Joe Torre, Dr. Gary Wadler, Jim Warring, A. J. West, Danny Wheat, Steve Winiarski, Dr. Brian Wolstein, Woody Woodward and Charles Zabransky.

Another 19 people spoke on condition of anonymity. Calls to Gene Orza, David Hofman, and Scott Boras were not returned.

Newspaper Sources
Associated Press

Boston Globe

Boston Herald

Chicago Tribune

Daily Mail
(London)
Dallas Morning News

Detroit Free-Press

Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
Fort Worth Star Telegram
Houston Chronicle

Miami Herald

Newark Star-Ledger

New York
Daily News

New York Post

New York Times

Newsday

Palm Beach Post

Seattle Times

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Notes on Sources

253

St. Petersburg Times

Tampa Tribune

Times
, London

USA Today

Wall Street Journal

Magazine/Other Periodical Sources
Baseball Digest

Baseball Weekly

BusinessWeek

ESPN The Magazine

Esquire

Muscle & Fitness

New York Magazine

People

Play

Sports Illustrated

Sporting News

Texas Monthly

The New Yorker

USA Today Sports Weekly
US Weekly

Website Sources

Baseball-Reference.com

Elbohio.com

ESPN.com

Fulgurazosblogspot.com

JoslynMorse.net

MLB.com

Radar.com

Realtor.com

Salon.com

254

Notes on Sources

SI.com

SmokingGun.com

TMZ.com

TV Transcripts

60 Minutes
(December 14, 2007)
Today
(March 2, 2004) YES Network:
YESterdays
, “Alex Rodriguez” (April 2008)

Books

Jose Canseco,
Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant Roids, Smash Hits, and
How Baseball Got Big
(New York: Harper Collins, 2005).

Jose Canseco,
Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars and the Battle to
Save Baseball
(Simon Spotlight Entertainment, 2008).

Matt Christopher,
On the Field with Alex Rodriguez
(New York: Little Brown, 2002).

Richard Ben Cramer,
Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).

Jerry Crasnick,
License to Deal: A Season on the Run with a Maverick Baseball Agent
(Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2005).

Dolf de Roos,
Real Estate Riches: How to Become Rich Using Your
Banker’s Money
(Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2004).

Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams,
Game of Shadows
(New York: Gotham Books, 2006).

Jim Fannin,
S.C.O.R.E. for Life
(New York: Collins Living, 2006).

Jim Gallagher,
Alex Rodriguez: Latinos in Baseball
(Childs, Md.: Mitchell Lane, 2001).

Alan Klein,
Sugarball: The American Game, the Dominican Dream
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991).

Buster Olney,
The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty
(New York: Perennial, 2004).

Alex Rodriguez,
Hit a Grand Slam
(Dallas: Taylor, 1998).

Notes on Sources

255

Eric Paul Roorda,
The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor
Policy and the Trujillo Regime in the Dominican Republic
(Dur-ham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998).

Rob Ruck,
The Tropic of Baseball
(Lincoln, Neb.: University of Ne-braska, 1999).

Mike Shalin,
Alex Rodriguez: A+ Shortstop
(Minneapolis, Minn.: Lerner, 1998).

Dan Shaughnessy,
Reversing the Curse
(New York: Houghton Mif-fl in, 2005).

Wayne Stewart,
Alex Rodriguez: A Biography
(Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2007).

Joe Torre and Tom Verducci,
The Yankee Years
(New York: Doubleday, 2009).

Mike Vaccaro,
Emperors and Idiots: The Hundred-Year Rivalry Between the Yankess and Red Sox— From the Very Beginning to the
End of the Curse
(New York: Doubleday, 2005).

Paula White,
Ten Commandments of Health and Wellness, with
Dodd Romero
(Tampa, Fla: Paula White Ministries, 2007).

Documentaries

Joe DiMaggio: The Final Chapter.
Directed by Marino Amoruso, 2000.

About the Author

S E LE NA R O B E RTS
, formerly a columnist for the
New York Times
, is a senior writer for
Sports Illustrated
.

She lives in Connecticut.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

ALSO BY SELENA ROBERTS

A Necessary Spectacle: Billie Jean King, Bobby Riggs,
and the Tennis Match That Leveled the Game
Credits

Jacket photographs: Walter Iooss Jr./Sports Illustrated/Getty Images Jacket design by Archie Ferguson
Copyright

A-ROD. Copyright © 2009 by Selena Roberts. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Acrobat eBook Reader April 2009

ISBN 978-0-06-189936-2

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