A-Waste: The Alex Rodriguez Book Sucks

Those who know me personally know that I am a man of my word and that I would never steer anyone wrong, much less a fellow sports fan.

So believe me when I tell you...do not waste your money on Selena Roberts' A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez. It is truly one of the worst sports biographies I have ever read.

My hopes were dashed almost from the start. I had expectations of Richard Ben Cramer's Babe Ruth book or Jeff Pearlman's wildly underrated take on Barry Bonds, Love Me, Hate Me.

Considering the ample hype, I thought the book would shed light on what it advertises: Alex Rodriguez's many lives.

Nope. It focuses on two of them: the occasionally caring and loving Alex and the evil, needy, greedy Alex. And this might come as a shock to you, but the majority of the book is devoted to the latter.

But trust me when I tell you, there is nothing in here that Deadspin or The New York Daily News hasn't already exposed for the world to see. The only thing you might learn more is the intricacies of Rodriguez's steroid use.

Everything else: the infidelities, personal insecurities, and clubhouse vanities have already been lifted up for the world to see.

The basic structure of the book is to consistently pummel you with these sordid deeds and sometimes remind you that hey, Alex Rodriguez plays baseball.

There is also conjecture of his good seasons (2001-2003, 2005, 2007) being tied to steroid use and his bad seasons (2004, 2006) because testing became more stringent.

There is very little background of how Alex Rodriguez was in the clubhouse except to say that he was a jerk who surrounded himself with a huge entourage and that was it.

Really, there's no more to it than that? From April to October, that's the extent of Alex Rodriguez: The Teammate?

The only positive thing I can really say about Roberts' work is the study on A-Rod and his early life growing up in New York/D.R./Miami. His abandonment issues with his father and the way he was raised was certainly interesting and it explained a lot of who he became to be.

That was the kind of work I was expecting and, in the beginning, I thought I might have a gem on my hands. Sadly, the book skims over his high school experience, brings up steroid speculation, and it's on to the pros.

I'm not saying that Selena Roberts does a smear campaign against A-Rod. I do feel that this book was shoddily researched with a lot of conjecture and very little substance.

I also feel that a writer of Sports Illustrated, even though its a shell of itself now, should owe the public better, especially on a man they do not know very well.

You wanna know about A-Rod's early life or his Rangers steroid use in detail, pick it up.

However, if your looking for something more and you've read all the tabloid details, skip this book because believe me, there's not much to glean from it. I was thoroughly disappointed.