FanHouse Selena Roberts

Have you read A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez? Judging from the sales figures, you haven't. Selena Roberts' expose of the Yankees third baseman is languishing on store shelves a month after its release.

HarperCollins printed 150,000 copies of the book, but Nielsen BookScan reports that just 16,000 copies have been sold. According to the Associated Press, 11,000 of those copies sold during the first week of release. Given the nature of the story and the intense media coverage preceding its release, it's unlikely that too many interested readers were unaware of the book's availability.

Two weeks ago while broadcasting a New York Yankees game, former pitcher and current color commentator Rick Sutcliffe said that Alex Rodriguez was giving his teammate Mark Teixeira verbal indicators on where the catcher was setting up behind him while in the box. How exactly Sutcliffe could hear these verbal cues from Rodriguez while up in the television booth I'm not entirely sure.

Not surprisingly, both Rodriguez and Teixeira were informed of Sutcliffe's on-air claims and neither were very happy about it. So, with Sutcliffe back in town with ESPN to broadcast Tuesday night's latest edition of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, both players took the opportunity to confront Sutcliffe on his accusation.

It's been a pretty horrible year for Alex Rodriguez, but after seeing the way he's handled himself in light of the steroid scandal and reading Selena Roberts' book, I kind of get the impression that he couldn't care less. According to Roberts in her book, Rodriguez is more focused these days on being a celebrity than a baseball player, and a lot of his actions back this up. There was that whole leaving his wife for Madonna thing, for example.

There was also a part of the book that talked about the first time A-Rod met Kate Hudson at the re-opening of the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami last November. Roberts said that Hudson flirted with A-Rod pretty constantly and that he seemed to like it, and now apparently the two of them are spending their time making out with each other in New York restaurants.

BALTIMORE -- Alex Rodriguez rejoined the Yankees Friday afternoon, taking his customary No. 4 spot in the lineup.

He homered on the first pitch he saw, a 97 mph offering from Jeremy Guthrie, giving New York an early 3-0 lead.

The only thing less surprising than the home run or the fans booing and holding up foam syringes was the small army of scribes, television reporters, microphones and cameras that awaited him before his first at-bat. (FanHouse counted more than 30 reporters in the visitor's clubhouse just after 4 PM ET, and that number swelled as Rodriguez's address of the media grew closer.)

After the jump are the highlights of A-Rod's session with the media.

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We've learned quite a bit about Alex Rodriguez over the last few years, haven't we? Probably a lot more than any of us ever wanted to know, quite frankly. His love for muscular blondes and his own reflection aside, the most important revelations about Rodriguez have been the ones that have to do with him on a baseball field -- more specifically, his use of performance-enhancing drugs.

This spring, A-Rod admitted he took steroids while with the Texas Rangers, but only because a new book by Selena Roberts exposed the truth, and he had no choice. Now that same book is closer to being released, and a whole bunch of new allegations about his steroid use outside of Texas, along with the fact he may have tipped pitches to opponents, has put him under the spotlight again. The difference is that this time Alex isn't talking, so MLB has decided to take the matter into it's own incompetent hands.

In the book, American Icon, Roger Clemens is portrayed as a fallen idol whose obsessive drive to be the best pitcher in baseball led him to rely on steroids and human growth hormone, choices that entangled him in a web of lies and eventually exposed him as a narcissistic cheat and, possibly, a criminal. It is a fascinating, exhaustively researched exposé of baseball's corrosive drug culture and the damage it did to Clemens, the people around him and, especially, to the game.

In the book, A-Rod, Alex Rodriguez is portrayed as a flawed superstar whose relentless drive to be the best player in baseball led him to experiment with steroids from an early age, a decision that would highlight both his vanity and insecurities. It is a revealing, salacious peek inside the bizarre, flimsy bubble in which Rodriguez lives.

The New York Daily News has obtained (it didn't say how) either a copy or excerpts from Selena Roberts' upcoming book on Alex Rodriguez. Roberts, formerly of The New York Times and now at Sports Illustrated, in February broke the news of A-Rod's failed steroids test, leading to his admitting usage.

But the latest revelations don't measure up to that story, because what the Daily News has revealed from the book is less damning. It is all second-hand, speculation and hearsay.

Does that mean that A-Rod didn't use performance-enhancing drugs in high school or after joining the Yankees? No. But the burden of proof is far from met.

Alex Rodriguez was bound to have a difficult 2009 season, even if his on-field performance met the typical MVP standards the slugger has established throughout his career. His steroid admission ensured that.

But now that Rodriguez's brother, Joe Dunand, has alerted the media that A-Rod will miss the first 10 weeks of the 2009 season due to scheduled surgery to remove a cyst from his hip, he's bound to endure even more scrutiny.

Alex Rodriguez admitted in his interview with Peter Gammons that he took steroids. He also discussed Selena Roberts, the Sports Illustrated reporter who broke the news of his positive test, and accused her of "stalking" him.

This seemed a touch over the top and such a sentiment was qualified by the police not having any records of trouble between the two. Now, Rodriguez has called Roberts to apologize for his statements toward Roberts, presumably because they were entirely made up.

While most would agree that publicly admitting and apologizing for taking steroids while in Texas was the best move Alex Rodriguez could have made, even if it was just an "I'm sorry that I got caught" admission, there has still been some trouble stemming from the admission. For Rodriguez, he's taken some grief about making claims that Selena Roberts was stalking him, and had even broken into his house.

Those allegations have even gotten Peter Gammons in trouble for not making Rodriguez explain the comments or at least show some proof. Though now we're finding out why Rodriguez might not have any evidence to show, because according to the police, there are no such records of anything ever happening.