* Too much, too late?

This two-page overview of three Yankees titles — The Yankees Years, by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci; A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez, by Selena Roberts; and American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime, by Thompson, Vinton, O’Keeffe and Red — appears in this weeks New York Times‘ Sunday book review section. And I have several problems with it.

For one thing, the timing. These books were released so long ago, relatively speaking (Years in February, the other two in May). Now in my day job at a weekly publication, I’m pretty liberal in the book review policy as farm as timing goes. But because we’re a speciality publication and the books we consider are pretty narrow in scope, we do what we want. We are not The New York Times, which should be concentrating on the cutting edge in all things newsworthy.

So why these books and why now? Each of them had been reviewed when they were originally released? With all the complaints about shrinking book sections, why did the editors decide it was worth re-examination, considering they were pretty much panned the first time around by the general reviewing public.

Second — and with all due disrespect — who the heck is Touré? The Times‘ bio describes him as “an on-air contributor to NBC and the author of “Never Drank the Kool-Aid,” a collection of essays.” Does a reviewer need any expertise in the topic of e book he or she is critiquing? When it comes to this genre (of which I’m obviously not very objective), I would say yes, but Touré doesn’t seem to have any. According to his MySpace page, he’s had a lot of experience covering the Hip-hop world, but when it comes to sports,

He has often evoked the participatory journalism of Tom Wolfe and George Plimpton, for example, playing high-stakes poker with Jay-Z, two-on-two basketball with Prince, one-on-one basketball with Wynton Marsalis, tennis with Jennifer Capriati, or writing illegal graffiti with known graffiti artists.

Sorry, I don’t get it. Nicholas Dawidoff, author of a couple of highly-regarded baseball-themed books, reviewed A-Rod, while the other two were handled by NYT staffer Michiko Kakutani.

Thirdly, Touré brings nothing new to the table, nothing we haven’t already read, as he infers in writing about American Icon, “[It] mostly covers ground that serious baseball fans already know, but it may answer some lingering Yankee questions,” he writes. I beg to differ: at this point, I don’t know if they even care any more.

You folks know me. I read anything about baseball, even bios on the Wheaties boxes, but given the publishing situation these days, I wish more thought would be given about needless duplication.

* Bits and Pieces

Time to play a little catch-up:

• From Pressboxonline.com, a Baltimore-sports oriented site, a review of Bert Randolph Sugar’s new coffee table book about the Hall of Fame. “[The author] left nothing out and I can’t think of a better way to educate those whom are grasping for a better understanding of baseball’s history than to give Sugar’s account a long look.”
• From the Magazine History blog, this entry about early articles on  the new national game.
• From the Illinois-based Beacon News, a profile of first-time author John O’Donnell and his new book, Like Night and Day: A Look at Chicago Baseball 1964-1969.
• From NewJerseyNewsRoom, this Q & A with Curt Smith, author of the new Vin Scully biography. Smith will be at the Yogi Berra Museum in Little Falls on Sunday, June 28, at 4 p.m.
• Via a roundabout path, here’s a great piece by Robert Lipsyte on the spate of new books on baseball and steroids, including the usual titles (American Icon, The Rocket That Fell to Earther, A-Rod, Cooperstown Confidential, The Yankee Years, and more).
• Mark Lamster reviews Michael Shapiro’s Bottom of the Ninth in the Los Angeles Times. “Shapiro… does an admirable job telling this complex story. His biographical sketches of Rickey and Webb are especially compelling. But a sausage story is not always the most compelling of reads, and to inoculate himself against that reality, Shapiro has larded up this one by interspersing a second narrative, the story of Stengel’s final years with the Yankees, which is of little relation to the primary action of the book. It’s less than ideal, but Rickey, always an optimist, might have put a positive spin on it: Two stories for the price of one.”

* More National Pastime Radio

“Three baseball books are discussed: A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez by Selena Roberts, American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime by the staff of the New York Daily News, and The Yankee Years by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci.”

You read and listen to the segment here.

* RK Review: A-Rod

The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez, by Selena Roberts (Harper Collins)

There’s a telling reference in Selena Robert’s new expose on Alex Rodriguez:

[Rodriguez] pursued his investments with the same conflicted soul. He projected a Mister Rogers benevolence, but he was more like Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life.

Reading A-Rod, I got the feeling that she was channeling Robert Duval as the sinister sportswriter Max Mercy in The Natural who offers a veiled threat to Robert Redford’s Roy Hobbs. He can  make or break the likes of Hobbs, he warns, demanding the ballplayer’s excluisve story. Where does such hostility come from? (To use another movie metaphor, Roberts reminds one of the erstwhile reporter in the classic films of the 1930s, willing to do anything to get the story. But those were usually comedies.)

In his May 15 review of the book in The New York Times, Nicholas Dawidoff characterizes Roberts’ “hastily constructed but important account” as “less a full-biography that a first-rate magazine profile.”

Indeed, the bulk of her biography is sandwiched between two thin slices in which she confronts Rodriguez during a workout and seems surprised that he doesn’t welcome her with open arms. (Anyone who’s ever worked out in more than a perfunctory manner knows that you don’t like being interrupted in the best of circumstances, let alone by a reporter slinging accusations.) This became the basis of an article that first appeared on SI.com and later morphed into the book. It almost appears that her purpose all along was to write this tell-all bio, and that PED situation was the icing on the cake.

In her explanation of why she chose to confront Rodriguez during an off-season workout, Roberts writes:

I went to Alex because a player told me he had witnessed a strange scene: [Kevin] Brown and Alex had ampoules of HGH in their possession at Yankee Stadium. “I don’t know what they were doing with it,” he said. The player was very clear that he hadn’t seen either Brown or Alex inject it and reminded me that “the stuff wasn’t banned then.” That was true. (emphasis added).

Robert returns to the scene at the gym in the book’s epilogue, offering a point-by-point account of her attempts to track him down (Inspector Javert?) and the aftermath with a virtual “he said/she said,” which somehow seemed a forced way to try to prove her points.

* Too bad I promised…

not to write about Roberts/A-Rod anymore. If I hadn’t, I would have included this and this. Or this from The Fy in the Wall column on Sportsing News.com:

Selena Roberts’ new book on A-Rod is getting panned all over the place. And according to the New York Post, the book isn’t exactly flying off the shelves. Amazon had it as the 61st highest seller of the day Monday . “You want a book like this to be in the top 10 or 25 or so,” said Sara Nelson, former editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly, “Sixty is good but not surprising and not extraordinary.” Fly’s take: We’ve already heard enough about the juicy parts of the book – A-Rod allegedly using steroids since high school and tipping pitches to Rangers’ opponents. Plus, Joe Torre stole some of the thunder with “The Yankee Years,” which already covered A-Rod’s insecurity issues.

But a promise is a promise.

* Quick, call Selena Roberts!

Hey, fair is fair.

The mother of New York Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain is jailed in Nebraska and facing a felony charge after being arrested on suspicion of selling methamphetamine to an undercover police officer in February.

No doubt Chamberlain should now be the subject of scrutiny because of family issues. There must be a book in there somewhere.

* I guess we have to…

Loathe as I am to get dirty with the A-Rod book, I feel I would be derelict in my “duty” to ignore it. So we’ll try to make this as painless as possible.

I’m still waiting for my copy, so I’m just passing along what I’ve read.

The news falls into three basic camps: those who rejoice in anything that causes A-Rod pain or embarrassment, those who have a problem with author Selena Roberts, and the rest who believe enough is enough.

The middle group includes this excerpt from blogger Joseph DelGrippo on NYbaseballdigest.com and BleacherReport.com, discussing the latest juicy tidbit to be released in advance of the book: That while a member of the Texas Rangers, Rodriguez tipped opposing hitters on pitches

[T]he book’s author talks about having multiple unnamed sources confirming the…allegations. It is very easy for authors to hide behind their unnamed sources, and in several interviews I have seen and heard, the A-Rod book author is very adept at doing that.

* A-Rod Update

Remember when I noted that the robert’s book on A-Rod was coming out on May 12? Oc fourse you don’t, which is why I’m putting a link here.

Well scratch that. According to the Times, it comes out May 4.

“A-Rod, The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez” (HarperCollins), by Selena Roberts, asserts that Rodriguez used steroids in high school, took them as a major leaguer under the supervision of the now-banned trainer Angel Presinal, had human growth hormone in his possession in 2004 and was suspected by Yankee teammates of using steroids in 2005, according to a copy of the book obtained by The New York Times. The book is to be released Monday.

Can’t you just picture Commissioner Bud hearing the news and just putting his head in his hands and start muttering, “retirement is just around the corner. Retirement is just aorund the corner”?

* Here we go again

First it was the endless chatter about The Yankee Years. Seems the media just couldn’t keep their yaps shut about how Joe Torre dissed his players and bosses, blowing totally out of proportion thefew entries that actually addressed said topics.

Well, brace yourselves, boys and girls. It’s about to happen again.

When the news first broke that Alex Rodriguez had used performance enhancing drugs, there was buzz. Then came word that Selena Roberts was about to release a tell-all bio of the Yankees star, even though it was months before publication. The release date was moved up, from July to April, then pushed back to May (perhaps just in time for his return to the team? Hmm. Think of that as a promotion. Come to the ballpark and get a free copy of the book.)

So expect many articles like this (and this, and this) in the days and weeks to come.

Photo by Michael C. Weimar for The New York Times

* May 12. Mark your calendars.

That’s the date the Selena Roberts book on Alex Rodriguez is due out. Judging by the AP item, it’s like a run-down play:

…Roberts’ unauthorized A-Rod was originally planned for May, then was moved up to mid-April after Roberts, a Sports Illustrated reporter, broke the news that the Yankees slugger had tested positive for steroids back in 2003.

But with Roberts needing more time for the book — which has been completed and was sent to the printer this week — publication was pushed back to late April and now is planned for May 12, according to publisher Harper Collins.