Selena Roberts, off the deep end

There's something not right about Selena Roberts.

Here's her 2006 column in the Times, which accused the Duke lacrosse team of protecting known rapists in their midst.

The column is spectacularly accusatory, woven together with pieces of carefully selected and often irrelevant evidence to produce a terrifying indictment of the team and a warning to all women that men who rape women can count on their peers to protect them. The column verges on insanity, actually. How did this woman find a job after this? Later the entire column was proved to be, you guessed it, TOTAL BALONEY. Does this sound familiar? It should.

Roberts has found a new target, A-Rod. Why the fixation on A-Rod? Well if you write for the NY Times and got promoted to columnist the same year that the Times bought a share in the Red Sox, then you might suddenly find lots and lots of mysterious sources and evidence magically drop into your lap that appear to prove some preconcieved theory of who A-Rod is. Works well, actually, in conjunction with a Mitchell Report (George Mitchell was a Red Sox "director" when he was spreading his anti-Yankees propaganda).

The problem with her book is that way too many of her sources are anonymous. Who are these people who are saying these things about A-Rod? What is their evidence? Reports are that the book is long on opinion but short on sourced facts and reliable evidence, much like the Duke column.

Maybe the most damning (or sensational) charge is that A-Rod did steroids in High School. Lemme tell you something. A lot of kids make mistakes in high school. Top high school athletes sometimes do steroids. And answer me this: When was the last time you read about something bad that a celebrity did in HIGH SCHOOL? Even in a Presidential campaign, can you ever remember hearing smear about something a politician might or might not have done in this time of their lives? This is the first time I've ever seen, in any arena, percieved transgressions in high school becoming fair game as part of a character assassinaiton.

And I must comment on this one. Roberts claims, without evidence, that A-Rod went from benching 100 to 310 in 6 months. Did she ask HOW MANY REPS he was doing? How many sets? Were they freeweights or was it a bar? Was it on an incline? Was he spotted? And does anyone really care?

Sports Illustrated hired her for some reason, I don't know why. After the Duke Lacrosse fiasco, for which she has (unbelievably) never apologized, she should have permanently lost her credibility until she had checked herself into a mental clinic. But she was allowed to roam free, and, probably at the behest of the Red Sox, A-Rod is the next victim.

Edit: Check out this podcast where Buster Olney, longtime colleague of Roberts and a Pulitzer Prize nominee for his brilliant work as the Yankees beatwriter, the man who left the Times in 2002 when Roberts was promoted and the paper bought a piece of the Red Sox, calling the book "white noise", saying people's "eyes will glaze over", and challenging Roberts to produce "hard evidence".

Edit: Oh now Girardi has responded. A public rebuke for Selena Roberts. Keem em coming, boys.

And I like Jeter's quote at the end: "I don't know what you're talking about." Good one, Selena, you've just pissed off the Captain.