A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez (30 page)

Alex treated the 2008 All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium as his bachelor party, one that celebrated his liberation from marriage.

On July 14, one day before the game, Alex invited Madonna, Beyoncé, Red Sox star David Ortiz and several Yankee teammates to a party he was throwing at Jay-Z’s 40/40 Club in Manhattan.
There was a red carpet for guests and ropes marking the area set aside for photographers. Inside, hired dancers shook and shimmied as Madonna classics like “Holiday” blasted from the speakers.

Many A-listers were invited, but few of them showed up. Not even Madonna stopped by, and most of Alex’s teammates skipped his bash in favor of the All-Star celebration hosted by Derek Jeter.

His party was packed with guests that included Michael Jordan and Billy Crystal. As the gossip pages described it, Alex was last seen sitting in a back booth at the 40/40 Club with his mother and Ingrid Casares.

Friends say Alex was, for the fi rst time, allowing his outside interests to distract him from his job. “Baseball was running a distant third,” says one friend. “He’d never acted that way before.” Baseball seemed like an annoying chore to Alex at the All-Star Game.

In the run-up to the big event, baseball offi cials had asked him to compete in the Home Run Derby. What a great night it would be, they thought: Last All-Star gala at the old Yankee Stadium. What a treat it would be for fans to see Alex in pinstripes ripping home runs into a night sky with the backdrop of the stadium’s famous red, white and blue bunting. MLB offi cials were desperate for Alex to fl ex his swing for the cameras, and for the good of the game.

Alex declined. “I need my swing to be at its best,” he said, not wanting to tweak his mechanics by going all out in a long-ball gim-mick. This seemed like an odd excuse to baseball offi cials— hadn’t Alex spent his entire career swinging for the fences?

Alex didn’t care whom he angered. He was through trying to please anybody but A-Rod.

The media didn’t take the hint; about two-dozen media members—including a camera crew from “Inside Edition”—crowded around Alex during a session with players the day before the game.

He was the biggest draw there, and he loved it. His notoriety had fi nally transcended baseball; he was now in Madonna’s orbit. “Look, everybody has distractions and personal things,” he told the press,
referring to his relationship with Madonna but not mentioning her name. “Mine are on the front pages of the papers—and I’m fi ne with that.”

Alex fi elded every question. He spoke earnestly about the hal-lowed history of Yankee Stadium and the poignancy of this fi nal All-Star Game there. He seemed genuine when talking about what he owed the game’s next generation: “I think it’s my responsibility to spend a lot of time with these younger guys that are here for the fi rst time.”

Alex started at third base, went hitless and was taken out of the game in the fi fth inning. He darted to the clubhouse, changed into his nightclub best and left Yankee Stadium before the sixth inning was over. Friends say he went to see Madonna.

The All-Star Game went into extra innings, and didn’t end until 1:30 a.m.; writers instantly declared the game a classic. As the AL scored the winning run in the bottom of the 15th inning, Derek Jeter was on the top step of the dugout, pumping his fi st.

He, like Alex, had been taken out of the game in the fi fth inning.

Jeter knew what it meant to be part of a team.

The Trump Park Avenue apartment Alex had shared with Cynthia was protected by dutiful doormen who opened golden-barred doors that gave the building’s lobby a gilded-cage look. . . and by mid-summer, Alex felt trapped there. He had once aspired to live beside corporate tycoons, but now this luxury building felt old, fussy, way too buttoned-down for a man sleeping with Madonna.

Three years earlier, it had been a perfect refl ection of Alex—or, at least, of the image he was creating for himself. It was 2005, when Manhattan was awash in hedge-fund money. There were wait lists for $1 million Ferraris. Private jets were being outfi tted with theaters. Back then Alex, with a six-month old baby and his wife, Cynthia, wanted badly to live at a Donald Trump address. Not just any
Trump building— Derek Jeter had bought an apartment at Trump World Plaza in 2001— but the one with the most cachet.

Trump, the pouty-lipped real estate magnate with the dust-bunny coiffure, was a genius at making wretched excess seem glamorous. When he converted the former Hotel Delmonico into high-end condominiums, Alex eagerly bought in. He paid $7.4

million for his apartment. But now the building had the wrong vibe for the new, liberated Alex.

Alex put the place on the market for $14 million and searched for a new dream pad at 15 Central Park West, a building full of A-listers from sports and entertainment— Sting, Denzel Washington and NASCAR superstar Jeff Gordon. A bonus: It was two blocks from Madonna’s apartment.

He eventually rented an apartment at 15 Central Park West for $30,000 a month. At the same time he was trying to unload his Trump co-op. It ultimately sold in six months for $9.9 million, $4.1 million less than his asking price.

Alex’s broker, the Modlin Group, played around with some catchy phrasing in their sales brochure: “In a League of Its Own!”

read the opening sentence, an obvious reference to Madonna’s role in the 1992 movie
A League of Their Own
. It seemed as if everyone— including Alex’s realtor— was poking fun at the Material Matron/A-Rod affair.

Alex didn’t feel like a punchline, however. He felt validated by this affair that, in his mind, conjured up a stunning parallel.

Friends say he fancied himself as the embodiment of a legendary Yankee who, like him, had been a multi-talented superstar, the constant obsession of the paparazzi, and like him, romantically-linked to a famous and glamorous woman.

Alex thought of himself as a replica of Joe DiMaggio; Madonna was Marilyn Monroe.

There were obvious differences— DiMaggio was retired when he married Monroe and was a man who militantly guarded his
privacy. “DiMaggio practiced being an icon,” longtime baseball writer Jack Lang once said, and his aura had legs even after his career ended. Alex liked that. His fascination with Madonna was rivaled only by his attempts to emulate DiMaggio’s life. Alex had heard about the Yankee legend as a child, and he identifi ed most strongly with the elegance of DiMaggio, who stroked home runs with an oiled swing and ran the bases with the ease of a pianist running a keyboard. He was beautiful to watch, even stunning.

Alex also admired DiMaggio’s consistency— a lifetime batting average of .325, combined with impressive power numbers. He had hit 46 home runs in 1937, his second season, despite the formidable disadvantage of being a right-handed batter in Yankee Stadium, the House That Ruth Built— or, more accurately, the House That Was Built for Lefties. The power alley for a right-handed hitter was left center fi eld, the fence there 457 feet away from home plate, and was reachable for most players only by phone.

Alex also marveled at DiMaggio’s life-story. He had been born to immigrants, as had Alex. Like DiMaggio, Alex equated income with stature as a ballplayer. In 1949, DiMaggio had signed a contract with the Yankees for $100,000— unheard-of money in post– World War II America. In 2000, Alex had signed a contract for $252 million— unfathomable numbers for the new millennium.

DiMaggio had angered fans when he held out for more. Alex had been excoriated when
he
got more.

Even DiMaggio’s pop-culture longevity captivated Alex. Paul Simon’s line in a song, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?”

became a catchphrase of the disillusioned in the ’60s. Alex craved such transcendence. But it was all superfi cial.

When Alex agreed to allow Pulitzer Prize–winning author Richard Ben Cramer— who had written
Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s
Life
— to pen his biography, he wasn’t aware that Cramer’s book had exposed DiMaggio’s dark side. He hadn’t read it, referring to it as a “thick book.” Alex told friends his dream for the book: to be a
New York Times
bestseller, to land him on Oprah’s couch, to defi ne his fame. As easy as 1, 2, 3.

The mundane part of Alex’s life— playing baseball for the New York Yankees— was nearly lost in the hail of newspaper stories about his social life. All summer, he was linked to strippers and fi tness contestants. His former teammate, John Rocker, stepped forward to ask the public to look on the bright side of Alex’s tawdry romps. “You can’t expect him to be a saint,” Rocker said. “He has done well. He has no STDs. No illegitimate kids. No multiple wives.”

Yankee teammates and executives, however, were dismayed.

One offi cial worried about Alex’s state of mind and wondered if his handlers had forgotten “that this guy is a baseball player fi rst.” This Alex didn’t square with the apple-pie image Major League Baseball preferred to project. Its best and richest player was being mentioned too frequently in the
National Enquirer
. This couldn’t have pleased the Midwestern sensibilities of Commissioner Bud Selig, who said, “I learned a long time ago that unless a player gets in legal trouble or associates with unsavory characters that threaten the integrity of the game, it is best not to get involved in a player’s personal life.”

The Yankees, too, refused to meddle, and Alex fi nally started playing like an All-Star; he hit .337 in July. He was back in the zone.

Dancing to Madonna’s choreography, Alex began arranging his public appearances as if he were a shiny bauble in a display case.

This was his new MO. A typical snapshot of this occurred on a starry-skied Friday night in Boston on July 27, 2008. Earlier that day at Fenway Park, Alex stepped into the on-deck circle while four young women in the front row greeted him while waving cutouts
of Madonna’s face. He had seen and heard worse and, unfazed, went 2 for 4.

Then he went out to be seen, hopefully by a more admiring public, at the team hotel, the Ritz-Carlton. The Yankees’ team bus arrived at the hotel around at 11:10 p.m., and Alex walked straight to the city-chic JER-NE Restaurant & Bar next with two pals: Yonder Alonso, a fi rst baseman from the University of Miami who had been chosen in the fi rst round by the Reds, and Pepe Gomez, a childhood friend.

A dimly lit, secluded booth was available in the back, but Alex chose a seat facing the rest of the diners at a table next to a picture window. Only a pane of glass separated him from the busy sidewalk where gawkers turned their heads and pointed at him. He had created his own display case.

Everyone could see Alex, including a group of women in clingy tops and spiked heels who turned all their attention to him. With techno-pop music thumping from the sound system, he exited to take a phone call. He returned a few minutes later, trailed by a hotel security man in a black suit— an impromptu bodyguard— who stood next to Alex’s table.

Coach Tony Pena was in the bar; so were Melky Cabrera and a handful of others, such as pitcher Sidney Ponson. In the back of the marble hotel lobby, near an elegant fi replace and out of sight from the groupies, sat Bobby Abreu. He was chatting with family and friends at a quiet lounge table.

The security guard’s job was simple: Keep everyone away from Alex while he ate his shrimp cocktail. The women at the bar, who had just refreshed their lip gloss, were undeterred. A few of them— including one in a dress the size and color of a bee’s hide— walked back and forth in front of Alex’s table, as if auditioning for a part in a movie.

They knew Alex had never been the chaste married man he projected to the public. A year earlier, in this same hotel, he had
had a dalliance with an exotic dancer. “He’ll be with these girls who are almost prostitutes,” Romero says. “He’s so disciplined in one area and not in another.”

By 12:15 a.m., Alex tossed a few bills on the table to cover the check and left. This was Ponson’s lucky night. The baseball fans in tight skirts who had been fl irting with Alex now detoured to his table.

Those unlucky women never had a chance— they didn’t know that Alex had promised Madonna he’d remain true to her— at least publicly— while they were a couple.

Alex was having fun with the attention. He was already employing celebrity tricks. Five days later, following a day game at Yankee Stadium, there was an entertainment videographer and an assistant on a stake-out outside Alex’s apartment.

They fi nally spotted Alex’s midnight blue Chevy Suburban as it rolled up to the curb in front of the building’s doormen. But the only person who stepped out was Gomez. Alex had been dropped off down the street. Gomez and the Suburban were decoys, so Alex could walk into his building unnoticed, but he was still seen. He was still videotaped. “That was for show,” the videographer said of Alex’s move. For about a half hour, the videographer loitered near the sidewalk planter outside the entrance of Alex’s building.

“Who ya waitin’ for?” two NYPD offi cers asked him.

“The usual,” he replied.

The cops moved on without pausing.

“Alex had the great stats in July, but they were So-what? numbers,”

says one instructor who has worked with Alex. “They weren’t important to the team. When the Yankees needed him, he wasn’t there.”

The Yankees were bad in August, and Alex was worse: he had an a 0-for- 17 stretch and watched his batting average tumble from
.323 on August 1 to .308 by August 16. And who could he turn to for support, for advice, for consolation? For the fi rst time in his career, he had dropped his motivational guru, Jim Fannin, from his daily ritual. He didn’t have Dodd as his trainer and friend anymore. Cynthia was in Miami.

Baseball sources say he reached out to Angel Presinal in August, but even he couldn’t pull Alex out of his slump. He was sink-ing fast and taking the Yankees with him. Steinbrenner’s $200 million team was now in danger of missing the postseason for the fi rst time in 14 years. In the
New York Times
on August 27, Tyler Kep-ner wrote: “It is late August, the Boston Red Sox are in town, and a poor showing by the gurgling Yankees could sink their playoff hopes. This may be the closest the Yankees get to the postseason, and Alex Rodriguez is in October form. Rodriguez went 0 for 5