| Selena Book:
A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez
Book
A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez |  |  | | List Price: $26.99 | | Publisher: Harper
Salesrank: 77446
Released: May 4, 2009 | | Our Price: $7.13 | | Used Price: $2.98 | | | Media: Hardcover | |
Editorial Review:
Alex Rodriguez is the highest-paid player in the history of baseball, a once-in-a-generation talent poised to break many of the sport's most hallowed records. In 2007 he became the youngest player, at 32, ever to hit 500 home runs, solidifying his status as the greatest player in the modern game, and months later he signed a contract that would keep him with the Yankees through the end of his career. His reputation changed drastically in February 2009 when Selena Roberts broke the news in Sports Illustrated that A-Rod had used performance-enhancing drugs during his 2003 MVP season with the Texas Rangers. Her report prompted a contrite Rodriguez to admit illegal drug use during his 2001–2003 seasons with the Rangers, who had signed him to the most expensive contract in Major League Baseball history. Although he admitted to three seasons of steroid use, the man teammates call "A-Fraud" was still hiding the truth. In the first definitive biography of Alex Rodriguez, Roberts assembles the strands of a bizarre and extraordinary life: from his boyhood in New York and the Dominican Republic through his near-mythic high school career and fast track to the big leagues, the whole of A-Rod's career mirrors the rise and fall of the steroid generation. Roberts goes beyond the sensational headlines, probing A-Rod's childhood to reveal a man torn by obligation to his family and the pull of his insatiable hedonism, a conflict--epitomized by his relationship with Madonna and devotion to Kabbalah--that led to the end of his six-year marriage. Roberts sheds new light on A-Rod's abuse of performance-enhancing drugs, a practice he appears to have begun as early as high school and that extended into his Yankee years. She chronicles his secretive real estate deals, gets inside the negotiations for his latest record-breaking contract with the Yankees, and examines the insecurities that compel him to seek support from a motivational guru before every game. In A-Rod, Roberts captures baseball's greatest player as a tragic figure in pinstripes: the man once considered the clean exception of the steroid generation revealed as an unmistakable product of its greed and dissolution.A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez Reviews:
Eye Opening 
2009-12-15 - An eye opening account about A-rod. I was not surprised after I read this. I don't know that I would have done anything differently under the pressures that he had.
Timely and Relevant 
2009-08-18 - A timely and relevant book, whose sales figures would have benefited from an even more expansive title incorporating the by-line "PED's in Baseball".
This book is a tour de force of the steroid culture whose ramifications are permeating baseball to this day.
Using the life of Alex Rodriguez as the catalyst, not merely as the central character, the author explores the role of the office of the MLB Commissioner, club management, Scott Boras, the Players Association, BALCO and a netherworld of Dominican pseudo pharmaceutical fitness trainers in cultivating a sports mentality in which the rampant use of steroids is not only widely acknowledged and encouraged but supported by a code of silence in which non-using players, though disgusted, would never rat on a fellow player.
The reader is taken on a journey behind the scenes of the club house, the training yards, the glitz of the celebrity scene and into the homes of the various stars. The story of the anonymous drug testing of 2003 is discussed in full, together with the reaction of the various major parties to establishing a bona fide drug testing program within MLB.
Heavily supported by interview and drawing on numerous other books exploring the baseball drug phenomenon, the author provides a sense of authenticity supporting claims made, in what would otherwise be a clear route towards defamation litigation owing to the text's base grit in detail.
As the names of the "List" of positive testers is slowly leaked in the papers, supported by the findings of the Mitchell Report, this book clearly explains the mentality of those who made themselves vulnerable to the "PED's in baseball" net.
A contemporary book exploring a still unfolding drama.
Readers are recommended to download the audio version of this text too. Read with immense color, its 7 hours provide a wonderful way to hear this story told.
With nil repetition or filler, this book is simply a legitimate contribution to baseball history, written very much in the moment.
Typical 
2009-07-10 - This book really brings out the truth ...A_ROD is just like all of the pampered jocks.GREED & MONEY. Any one who takes seroids,HGH or any substance should be banned from the record books and all awards taken away. He is just a PUNK! A CHEATER!!!
Definitely worth the read
2009-07-09 - I thought Ms. Roberts did a wonderful job on the book. I read a lot of the reviews and feel that some of the negative views were totally off base. I recommend this book to anyone who wants an objective and in-depth read on A-Rod.
A Hatchet Job Deluxe 
2009-07-03 - Selena Roberts has an agenda. This book is not journalism. This is a sophomoric example of bush league writing and unmerciful hatchet journalism. It repeats itself over and over, and if Roberts had given each of her ARod examples one or two times, the book would have been no longer than a feature article in Sports Illustrated. This is shoddy journalism, poorly written, and it reeks of an agenda. Did ARod spurn her romantic overtures? Did he put her in her place? Who knows what really happened. All I know is that I've spent my reading life staying away from trash like this book, and now I know why.
I am not an Alex Rodriguez fan. In fact, I think he deserves all of the bad press he gets. I live in the Seattle area, and the treatment he dished out to Seattle Mariner fans was disrespectful and ugly. He lied to Seattle fans and he did it without regret. He could have told us the truth when he opted to leave a team that was on the verge of greatness so that he could make an absurd amount of money. All of us would have understood, but he chose to lie. That's okay, at least on one level, but it was totally unnecessary. We are an educated bunch up here in the Northwest (not much to do during the winter and early spring except read), and we would have easily understood his intentions. Nonetheless, liar that he proved to be, steroid popper that he appears to be, and less than spectacular ball player that he is, he didn't deserve this book.
A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez says more about Selena Roberts than it does about Alex Rodriquez. He is under no obligation to talk to her. He owes her nothing. She, obviously, owes him nothing. I understand that this book is not selling well. I don't doubt it. It is not well written, it reeks of hatred, and it is repetitious. Each chapter is a re-write of the previous chapter. All of the inside information is oft repeated without any attribution. It appeared to me that the only time she directly refers to a source is when the source came from an outside publication. Jose Canseco's two books are a standard source. A few interviews with Ranger's owner Hicks. But the bulk of the investigative information comes from unnamed sources. Too many. Far too many. The book has no credibility. For all we know, she made it up.
I'm also a bit weary about hearing how Rodriguez is the best ball player in baseball history. Such rubbish. He's a clutch choker. The greatest ball players of all time don't consistently choke; they find a way to prevail. A-Rod has spent his career choking when the chips were on the line. Oh, sure, he has performed during a regular season games, but his play-off stats are laughable.
And this book is laughable. I suggest you stay away from this trash.
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