At age 33, Alex Rodriguez is the highest paid player in the history of baseball, a once-in-a-generation talent who is about to break many of the sport’s most hallowed batting records. Yet, he is repeatedly taunted by fans and teammates who cheer when he’s on a streak and jeer as soon as he slumps. Through meticulous reporting and hundreds of interviews, Sports Illustrated writer Selena Roberts – who broke news of Rodriguez’s steroid use back in February -- analyzes the elements of A-Rod’s freefall, from his strained relationships with teammates to his failure on the field in clutch situations, from his cold business decisions to his steroid use. The first comprehensive biography on Rodriguez, A Rod is a no holds barred look at a lifestyle steeped in lies and contradictions that are finally catching up to baseball’s greatest star.
The Good Son
The back porch of the Emerald Park Retirement Center opens onto a large green lawn with a stone walkway that loops through the neatly trimmed grass and curls by a half-dozen benches. It's not an entirely bucolic scene, though. Over a stucco wall, there is a sprawling strip mall where a pub boasts that it opens "daily at 7 a.m."
Across the road out front there is a trailer park where residents live in single-wides on cinder blocks and aged RVs with broken headlights. A six-lane highway borders the center on the left, which makes this one of the noisier parts of Hollywood, Florida, with sedans, vans and 18-wheelers blasting past the corporate parks and the multiple storefronts for psychics.
Inside Emerald, where Muzak bathes a vast community room of white tile, Victor Rodriguez feels fortunate.
"It's a nice place," Victor says. "I'm taken care of."
He looks sturdier than any of the other residents. Most appear to be at least 10 years older than Victor, who is 79. Behind him, a brittle-looking man in blue shorts, black socks and orthopedic shoes is slumped in a chair asleep, oxygen tubes plugged into his nostrils. A woman with a walker moves slowly across the lobby, asking why the room is so cold -- again and again. Victor sits next to the glass elevator, upright in his chair, dressed in a crisp short-sleeved button-down shirt and brown slacks with a sharp crease. His jaw is still square. He still resembles the ballplayer he once was.
"My son, Alex, he is, let me tell you, a much better player than I was," Victor says. "He is the best, I think. But I am a father, so . . ."