Tag: Alex Rodriguez

Score one for Sports Illustrated.

In November 2007, the weekly magazine hired sports columnist Selena Roberts away from The New York Times.

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It got its money’s worth last week when Roberts and colleague David Epstein came through with an exclusive report revealing that baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids while playing for the Texas Rangers in 2003.

On Monday, Rodriguez confirmed the story in an interview with ESPN’s Peter Gammons.

During the interview Rodriguez, who now plays for the New York Yankees, accused Roberts of stalking him during the course of her reporting.

The third baseman said that Roberts had been thrown out of his New York City apartment and that she had trespassed at the University of Miami in an attempt to get access to him.

“And four days ago she tried to break into my house where my girls are up there sleeping, and got cited by the Miami Beach police,” Rodriguez said. “I have the paper here.”

Roberts immediately denied the accusations. “Everything that came out of his mouth was a fabrication,” she told Newsday.

Subsequently, Rodriguez has produced no proof of inappropriate or illegal conduct by Roberts. Police agencies allegedly involved have said they have no records of any break-ins or acts of trespass.

Rodriguez and Roberts do have history, as she wrote about him, sometimes critically, when she was at the Times.

In addition, she’s finished a book on Rodriguez, Hit and Run: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez, scheduled for publication on May. 19.

Roberts told Newsday that there would be things in the book that Rodriguez probably won’t like.

But, by all accounts, she and Epstein got their story the old-fashioned way. The worked their sources and kept digging and digging until they had things pinned down.

Roberts then confronted Rodriguez about the test results.

“You’ll have to talk to the (players’) union,” Rodriguez said. He added the comment, “I’m not saying anything.”

Roberts, 42, is a journalism graduate of Auburn University who worked at The Tampa Tribune, the Orlando Sentinel and the Minneapolis Star Tribune before joining the Times in 1996 to cover the New Jersey Nets.

She went on to cover a variety of topics and beats, including the Olympics, before becoming a columnist in 2002.

Epstein, Roberts’ colleague on the Rodriguez story, worked at New York’s Daily News and Inside Higher Ed before joining Sports Illustrated.

He has a Masters degree in journalism and a Masters degree in environmental science from Columbia University.

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