The Selena Roberts question

Selena Roberts, former New York Times columnist and current Sports Illustrated writer, has a lot riding on her Alex Rodriguez story. Seemingly without seeing the list of players who failed the 2003 drug tests but corroborating her information with four sources, she has accused one of baseball’s biggest starts and its highest paid player of juicing.

She’s also two and a half months away from publishing an exposé on A-Rod called Hit & Run: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez. Baseball & The Boogie Down believes that this upcoming book raising some interesting questions:

From what I’ve gathered through several web searches, the book is described as “an expose of A-Rod’s controversial path to self-destruction.” Something tells me the purpose of this book is not intended to paint A-Rod in a positive light.

I’m sure Alex is aware of the book and I’m sure Alex knows who Selena Roberts is. Why would he give her the time of day and answer any questions she asks him? She should have known that he’d blow her off when she asked him about testing positive. His failure to say anything to her shouldn’t be read as an admission of guilt, which is kind of how it came across in her interview with Bob Costas. I may not have the quote 100% correct, but she basically said, “He could have said I don’t know who your sources are but their dead wrong.” Hence, she believes her sources even more.

Could this be just a ploy to sell a few extra books? If Alex comes out and says she’s wrong and that he never tested positive, then what? Then it turns into he said, she said and then how do we know who to really believe. What if someone trots out 4 anonymous and “reliable” sources that say he didn’t test positive and the SI article is a fabrication. It’s not out of the realm of possibility, especially when people say they have anonymous sources. There’s really no way for anyone, other than the person citing the sources, to verify it’s authenticity, right?

It’s certainly an interesting scenario, but the more time that passes without a statement from A-Rod, the less likely it is. If A-Rod wants to shed some doubt on this list, he first has to know for sure that he isn’t on it. At some point in the future during the Bonds perjury trial, the entire list will be made public, and if A-Rod has any doubt about his name’s appearing on it, he can’t do this.

RAB commenter Artist formerly known as “The” Steve summed it all up in an e-mail to me this morning:

For the sake of his legacy, denial is his only hope. I’ve heard HOF voters (Ken Davidoff) already say they won’t vote for him if this is true. But he can’t do that credibly if the Feds have the original list and samples and that eventually becomes public. According to the Bonds court case, they do. So everything will come out eventually.

I think he’s boxed into a corner. He HAS to fess up, and live with the consequences.

A 100 percent complete admission will be the first step in rehabbing an image, and as the silence continues from the A-Rod camp, the next few days will be quite telling.