Bringing Up A-Rod

“There’s no doubt in my mind she was swift-boated by a cabal of talk radio troglodytes who questioned her sexuality

“There’s no doubt in my mind she was swift-boated by a cabal of talk radio troglodytes who questioned her sexuality and others who were obsessed with the Duke lacrosse rape case,” said Mr. Hirshey. “Whether it was A-Rod’s people or the Yankees who orchestrated this smear campaign, I have no idea.”

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His writer doesn’t agree.

“I don’t think A-Rod needs handlers to help him,” said Ms. Roberts. “He’s in a position himself. I don’t think there needed to be a manipulation. I don’t have any evidence there was a manipulation. He himself made a comeback.”

And A-Rod’s handlers deny the backlash against Ms. Roberts was a part of their plan to save their own client’s reputation.

“That was not by design,” said Mr. Sharp.

“When you represent a celebrity client, you don’t want the person writing a book to sell a lot of books,” said Mr. Reisinger. “The less hype and less controversy that surrounds the book—and trying to guess what may be in the book—the less there is of all that, the more it dies down.”

But they stopped short of saying they didn’t peddle Ms. Roberts as a “hard-core feminist” to the press on the strength of her Duke clips.

“She certainly can write and I’m sure she means well,” he continued, “but at the end of the day, taking the allegations she had made against Alex in conjunction with her work on the Duke case, which we extensively reviewed, it was clear to me that sometimes she writes with an agenda.”

When asked whether he passed on some of that information to reporters, he said, “I don’t want to comment on that.”

He described the book—particularly the allegations, which were exclusive to the book and were not included in her Sports Illustrated reporting, that A-Rod took steroids in 2006 and 2007—as “tabloid journalism. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Meanwhile, A-Rod was out of the spotlight, and in his first game back from injury on May 9, his renaissance began in earnest—he hit a home run on the first pitch he saw this season.

“When he hit that home run on that first pitch, I think that was the point he was back and showed that this is what he does,” said Mr. Sharp.

And, most oddly, the A-Rod stories in the paper started dying down. The boos at Yankee Stadium started dying down. Last week, he was on the front page of the News again, just this time the headline read: HIGH 5 FOR A-ROD

“I think ultimately that a, Americans are forgiving, and b, they like a hero,” said Mr. Reisinger. “If you can be contrite and come back and still perform at a level that very few players can perform at, it goes a long way to rebuilding the public trust and public confidence in you. It was up to him to perform in the field. We did what we had to do off the field—and so did he. He did. But ultimately his legacy will be determined with what happens on the field, not with what happened with this incident. If he continues on his career path statistically, he may go down statistically as the greatest player in history.”

“Let’s say this is where we hoped to be,” said Mr. Sharp. “I think the goal that Jay, that he and I, had in terms of preserving this young man the opportunity he’s got to redeem himself has thus far worked out.”

“We’ve accomplished 99 percent of our goals,” said Mr. Reisinger.

What else would A-Rod have to accomplish?

“That’s up to Alex. He has to perform.”

“I think it’s human nature that people would want to rally behind someone who is really vulnerable and to give him a helping hand in so many ways,” said Ms. Roberts. “New Yorkers are famous for that.

“The perception was that [A-Rod] was down and out,” she continued. “That’s all people need to latch on to somebody, you know, if we can give him a hand and pull him out of it.”

But at the end, despite the public beating she’s taken at the hands of radio hosts and some columnists and bloggers, Ms. Roberts said she has few regrets.

In its first two weeks out, her book was No. 8 and No. 10, respectively, on the Times best-seller list.

A-Rod? Since he’s returned from the disabled list, the Yankees have won 17 of 23 games and moved into first place. Last Friday, the News, in a story headlined “From the first pitch, Alex Rodriguez has been a blast for Yankees,” concluded: “When he returned to the Yankees, Rodriguez vowed to keep distractions to a minimum, focusing all of his attention on baseball. Making such a promise is one thing, but A-Rod has managed to back it up thus far, staying out of the headlines outside the sports section.”

jkoblin@observer.com

Bringing Up A-Rod