A Good Move?

The Sports Illustrated reporter who broke the story about Alex Rodriguez's steroid use is coming out with a book. But now, it's coming out a month earlier than originally planned.

Selena Roberts, who has done countless radio and television interviews over the last week, has written a book about Alex Rodriguez entitled "A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez". It was supposed to hit bookstands May 19th. But with all the publicity the A-Rod saga has received in the last seven days, the book will now be out April 14th.

Is this the best idea?

On one hand, with all the scrutiny and attention surrounding Rodriguez and the other players who have admitted or may later be outed for steroid use, there's no better time than now to capitalize on the American public's thurst for more information on the subject. The profit margin for a book of this subject figures to be high.

But to me, the decision to move up the release date comes off as a selfish way to take advantage of the situation by the journalist.

It is unknown whether the choice to release the book a month early was made by Roberts or by publisher Harper Collins. But it shouldn't be so obvious now that she's brought an impactful and highy controversial story to the forefront of the American conscience, she's hoping to make a few bucks off it too.

It's her right to author a book on the subject, and it figures to be an interesting read. So she was going to make some money off it anyway. And it's not like had the book kept its original release date in May that it wouldn't have a similar impact in terms of publicity and potential profit for Roberts.

Still, the decision to move the release date up just seems self serving to me. It brings into question the ethics of whether Roberts obligation to report the news was outweighed by her quest to break a story for personal gain. Now that she's focused the American public on her story, she's capitalizing on a window of opportunity to get all the rest of the A-Rod crazed public to buy her book.

What do you think? As Scott would say, get at us.

A Fraud He Truly Is

After making his initial apology, in the two minute snipit of his long exclusive interview on ESPN with Peter Gammons, Alex Rodriguez screwed up. Again.

In the full interview that aired on the 6 p.m. Eastern SportsCenter, A-Rod proved that he doesn't understand what this interview was supposed to be.

This interview was supposed to be the only way A-Rod could save face. It was supposed to be the interview in which A-Rod came out on top. It was supposed to be his saving grace from the public humiliation he would have faced had he lied about steroid use again.

Instead, while he did admit and apologize for steroid use, and may have won over a few fans, he also made some comments that didn't convince me for a second he was telling the truth.

If only Tim Roth's character in FOX's new drama Lie To Me, Cal Lightman, could analyze the tape on this week's episode. He'd probably find lies all over A-Rod's face.

First, he had to attack Selena Roberts, the SI.com journalist that broke this bombshell of a report on Saturday morning. He accused her of stalking him, tresspassing his property and trying to break into his house while his children were sleeping. Sports Illustrated commented during a break in the interview on SportsCenter calling the allegations absurd and untrue. It turns out that that there was an incident with Miami police, where Roberts tried to gain access to Rodriguez's gated community in Miami, although she apparently never entered his property. It also appears that this incident was minimal.

Furthermore, when asked about his nickname "A-Fraud" in Joe Torre's new book The Yankee Years and whether he heard the name in the clubhouse, he first said "never". Then he admitted just minutes later than in fact he had heard it and that the team jokes around with him about it all the time.

Granted, whether or not he was called A-Fraud isn't that big of a deal. But if that's not enough, he said he had never heard the names of the drugs he took. Does that sound believable to you? A guy so conscious of his own image, a guy who cares what everyone thinks of him wouldn't know what drugs he was taking? Over a span of three seasons?

And finally, he claims that when Union Head Gene Orza told him that he may or may not have tested positive for steroids in 2004, he took the comment at face value and never questioned whether he tested positive or not. Come on. That's ridiculous.

A-Rod would have been much better off just apologizing and being done with it. But instead, he had to make many evasive and potentially false statements and attacked a journalist with accusations that appear untrue.

A-Fraud, he truly is.