Doug Mientkkiewicz Backs A-Rod

According to this story, former Yankees' first-baseman and former high school teammate of Alex Rodriguez, Doug Mientkiewicz back A-Rod and states

"From my perspective, it would be 99.9% impossible for us not to know...You're basically accusing every kid that's gone through puberty that they're on steroids, too, huh? He gained a couple of inches height-wise too, if I remember right. . . . I knew what he looked like in ninth grade. He was skinny. Who isn't in ninth grade? He was very dedicated back then, he worked harder than anyone else."

It will be interesting to see, in the coming weeks, how many players come to Rodriguez's defense.

Mientkiewicz was in a unique position to make such a comment because he played with A-Rod in high school, but this begs a bit of a question:

Did Selena Roberts talk to Mientkiewicz? She supposedly talked to one of A-Rod's roommates, but the Daily News article that has everyone in a stir does not mention who the source is.

One would hope that Roberts talked to more than just one teammate.

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It's not really a secret that I'm not one of A-Rod's biggest fans, but the issue for me here isn't so much whether A-Rod did or did not do steroids (I'm of the belief that it's probably harder to find players who didn't use PEDs than those who did), but the way Roberts seems to have gone around, doing her reporting.

The caveat is, thus far, Roberts has yet to turn up anything false, but digging into someone's background like this?

A-Rod didn't murder babies, here.

I get that being a public figure means you relinquish some of your right to privacy, but seriously, unless you've taken a life in the past, or committed rape or genocide or some other such atrocity, what does it matter?

Seriously.

What does it matter what A-Rod did or didn't do way back when?

Look, if you caught him in the act, then yeah, make a big deal about it. What he's done in the major leagues is certainly relevant--especially anything he may have done with the Yankees.

Most crimes, however, have a thing called a Statute of Limitations. After a certain time frame, you can't prosecute the crime. Believe it or not, SoL exists even for rape (though not murder).

Shouldn't there be a statute of limitations on steroid accusations? For real?

A-Rod Conference Today's Big Draw

Alex Rodriguez is supposed to have his press conference today at 1.30 PM. I will be unable to cover it, so I figured I'd write a tiny bit before hand.


The most crucial thing for Alex to do is come clean. Pretend the Gammons interview never happened and come clean. Don't act like you're holding back, either. Come clean. Oh, and you probably should apologize, too.

After that, if you want to say that after today you never want to talk about this again, it's your right.

It might seem odd to us that Alex hired a PR firm to help him with this, but we have to remember that two years ago, this was the guy that 'opted out' of his mammoth contract during the clinching game of the World Series. Good PR is not exactly his thing.

However, as much as we might want to hope that the A-Roid saga will end today, the answer is that it won't--not when there's a book coming out, not while Alex is still a Yankee, not when the saga will continue to sell papers and magazines.

The thing the Yankees can look forward to after today, though, is that if they and Alex do this press conference thing right, they won't have to address it after today, at least, not publically.