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?

The Most Important Thing About the New A-Rod Book

Well, it has begun: the fallout from Selena Roberts' tell-all A-Rod book. Some of the stuff inside is stuff that many of us may have suspected, some not; but everything in Roberts' Sports Illustrated article was true, which makes it hard to doubt the veracity of this book.

So what now?

The most important thing that happens from here on out could very well be how the fans respond.

We saw the fans in the San Francisco Bay area not really give a crap about Bonds' steroids allegations (even if fans from 29 other franchises all did), and that Yankee fans have come out in support of Pettitte and Giambi who admitted to PED use.

A-Rod has admitted to 'roid use, but unlike Pettitte and Giambi, has yet to really fall into that 'likeable' category, for whatever reason.

So what happens now?

Do the fans embrace A-Rod, try to protect him and more or less pretend the Roberts book exist?

Do they boo A-Rod every time he comes up to the plate and make sure he knows that he's unwelcome in New York just the second year into his ten-year deal?

He's already one of the most polarizing players on the Yankees for his perceived aloofness, for his inability to get the clutch hit...

I am not his biggest fan, but this comes from the *head, meed desk*ing that goes on when he does another stupid off-field thing that only seems to distract him on it. I respect his immense baseball talent, and I mean, do you really want Cody Ransom playing third base for an entire season? Even Ramiro Peña, who is not quite such an automatic out, shortens the line up by a lot.

The Yankees seem to survive the Torre fiasco, although whether or not Torre himself would survive a return to the Bronx is another matter. He would have been welcomed as a hero had he returned before the book came out; now, I won't venture a guess.

Heh, remember when that was the big, bad story of the preseason?