In a Shocking Twist of Events Sportswriter Who Hates Everything About Alex Rodriguez Hates His Apology Too

Mike Lupica is a self-important asshole who has singlehandedly disproved the theory that it pays off to be nice to people and that those who treat others like they want to be treated will be rewarded. You wouldn't have to search far to hear stories of how Mike Lupica believes himself to be superior to his fellow co-workers, his neighbors or any other human being walking on Earth or in Heaven/Hell. So A-Rod apologizes for using steroids and his other crimes of ego and vanity. It was either going to be enough for some or not enough for others and the decision was probably made which way this would go well before A-Rod actually wrote the apology. People hate everything A-Rod does or they don't. They believe him or they don't. Mike Lupica is on his high horse and can't just write, "I don't like Alex Rodriguez so I choose not to believe him." No, Lupica has to think of horseshit excuses WHY he knows that the apology doesn't ring true among fans, though Lupica is about as in touch with sports fans as Tony Bennett is with the latest dance craze. The last time Lupica watched a game with real sports fans was the one time he got locked out of the press box and had to watch the third quarter of a Knicks game in the last row of Madison Square Garden. Even then he probably forced anyone who he had to sit beside out of their seat so he wouldn't feel crowded as he leaned forward in his chair with his toes barely touching the ground. A-Rod is an asshole and a liar. I'm not sure there's any doubt about that, but Mike Lupica mocking A-Rod and trying to pretend he knows anything about what the real sports fan thinks is the real assholery and lie in this situation.

To the end with Alex Rodriguez you wouldn’t believe the guy if he told you water was wet, even if he wrote that out in the schoolboy cursive handwriting he used on Tuesday when he apologized to the fans for being a very bad boy.

(Mike Lupica if A-Rod didn't apologize): "The least A-Rod could do is set aside his mountainous ego and tell the truth for once, even if it isn't the truth. Just write a letter or make a statement saying you are sorry. Is that too much to ask?"

(Mike Lupica when A-Rod does apologize): "A-Rod apologized. He didn't mean it. This is just another lie to add to the rolodex of lies that A-Rod seems to be keeping around in a feeble effort to get back in the good graces of fans."

See, when someone hates another person, then NOTHING the other person will do can stop the other person from hating him. At a certain point, the person doing the hating gets tuned out or ignored. So I expect nothing from Lupica but hate towards A-Rod and his take on A-Rod's letter will never convince me of Lupica's point of view.

Most fans reading it probably wanted to write one back: Shut up and get out.

Mike Lupica has absolutely zero idea what fans wanted to write back. The big lie here is any time Mike Lupica claims to even be 1% in touch with modern sports fans and their feelings. It's hard to mingle with the people when you won't leave your pedestal.

So this is the way Rodriguez decides to play it, deciding not to hold some kind of press conference before spring training, opting out of the visual of his lawyer sitting next to him and telling him which questions he could answer, and which ones would require him to exercise his Fifth Amendment rights, so as not to face self-incrimination.

Quite a scene that Lupica has set up here. Obviously A-Rod was opting out of creating a circus around himself for his own benefit and the media will never have a chance to speak with A-Rod ever again during the 2015 season. Such a sneaky fellow to permanently escape the questions of the media as he has.

But then DEA informants — it is exactly what Rodriguez is — rarely want to tell their stories in public.

Snitches get stitches! Mike Lupica don't like it much when snitches start telling stories to the DEA. That's the right way to end up on the wrong side of Lupica's glock.

And yes, Mike Lupica is now criticizing Alex Rodriguez for helping to put a drug dealer behind bars. Because while it's not honorable necessarily, it's also not something that merits any form of criticism.

Now he tries to control his own cockeyed narrative about his drug use — is he really going to try to convince us once again that he didn’t know what he was buying from Bosch and using? — with a written apology that is like a nuanced legal brief, one in which the only thing he really admits is that he did an historic amount of time.

It never ends. The amount of blood required from A-Rod to make up for his previous transgressions will never be enough. Andy Pettitte is seen as fully honest in saying, "I used PED's, but I didn't use them to enhance my performance so fuck you for thinking that's why I did it." He gets a rub-and-tug from the New York media while the Yankees retire his jersey. Alex Rodriguez admits he cheated and apologizes, but he gets criticized by Mike Lupica for not giving up more information with which he can be criticized. Perhaps A-Rod would have been better off claiming he never took PED's to enhance his performance.

It is one thing to tell his story to a writer or to the new commissioner, Rob Manfred, behind closed doors. Or to do the same thing, again behind closed doors to Hal Steinbrenner of the Yankees and his team president, Randy Levine, and his general manager, Brian Cashman. It would have been quite another thing for Rodriguez to have answered questions out in the open without a lawyer present.

A-Rod told his story and was honest with the commissioner and nearly every important decision-maker with the Yankees team, but because Mike Lupica didn't get to hear A-Rod's story then obviously he hasn't come completely clean. The sense of entitlement from Lupica is astounding. A-Rod told his story to anyone who matters, but because he wasn't honest with a person who hates him, then that means A-Rod hasn't totally done his penance quite yet. I'd love to see if Mike Lupica would hold himself to this same standard. Of course he wouldn't. There are separate rules for athletes and Mike Lupica. Mike Lupica hasn't ever had to explain himself to anyone. No, he is the type of person who has others explain themselves TO HIM. He's an insecure bully who can't see past his own ego.

And that really wasn’t the visual he wanted, taking questions from the New York media and the national media, then having to stop for whispered conversations with his current attorney, Jim Sharp, before he might say something contradictory to what he has already told the feds;

And obviously A-Rod might say something contradictory to what he has told the feds, because he is a snitch and a liar. I bet Mike Lupica thinks that A-Rod took PED's given to him by Anthony Bosch, while also lying and framing Bosch for being a drug dealer. I wouldn't doubt that Lupica could hold those two separate, contradictory opinions. It hurts Lupica's little feelings that A-Rod may not owe him an explanation. Because if Lupica is not owed an explanation then that means he isn't as important as he believes himself to be. So like any child who doesn't get his way when he REALLY REALLY wants his way, Lupica throws a fit and accuses Rodriguez of dodging the truth, when in reality Rodriguez doesn't care to tell the media the truth. Mike Lupica doesn't want to be out of the loop or feel like he's less than his ego tells him he is. So naturally, he calls out A-Rod for only telling his story to those people that really matter and not to the media.

“I served the longest suspension in the history of the League for PED use,” he writes.

Which he did and it was cut down from an even longer sentence.

Notice the language here. Rodriguez never uses the word steroids, the way he never used that word back in 2009 when he begged everybody for his first second chance.

Yes, notice how Rodriguez doesn't admit to using the steroids that he didn't use. He used HGH and other PED's as defined by MLB, but not steroids. So yes, I did notice how A-Rod never actually admitted to taking the steroids that he wasn't suspended for taking.

He doesn’t say “my” PED use. Just PED use.

And given the fact he was writing an apology letter for using PED's, it was pretty fucking obvious to only the most thick-headed person that A-Rod was referring to his PED use. In fact, using the word "my" in this sentence would be somewhat redundant. By starting the sentence with "I" then it is clear A-Rod is referring to himself when talking about the suspension for PED use. If you are going to hate on A-Rod at least be good at it and don't sound so desperate. Rodriguez certainly isn't writing an apology letter on someone else's behalf while using the first person.

“I accept the fact that many of you will not believe my apology or anything I say at this point,” he writes. “I understand and that’s on me.”

There you have it, Rodriguez’s own weird version of accountability.

That really is his accountability. He's taking responsibility for his actions and saying he doesn't blame a person for not believing him. What else would Lupica have A-Rod say? This won't be revealed because Lupica has no idea what his expectations for A-Rod are. He just doesn't like A-Rod and stretches to rip him whenever possible.

Even as he asks the fans to believe how sorry he is for everything he’s done, he admits that the same fans to whom he is speaking probably don’t believe he’s really sorry.

Would Lupica have preferred if A-Rod has written, "You will believe my apology, I am sure of it"? Is that more preferable? Again, we won't ever find out because Mike Lupica has no idea what he wants A-Rod to say. He just doesn't want A-Rod to say what he just said.

It will come out in the ESPN piece written by J.R. Moehringer that Alex is in therapy these days. Of course he is. It is about time, and better late than never, for somebody who really could be the buffet at a psychiatrist’s convention.

Mental health. Always a hilarious topic for a good laugh to break up the seriousness of a grown-ass sportswriter throwing a fit that he wasn't included as a stop on an apology tour. I'm sure Lupica would enjoy a few good hearty jokes at the expense of his family having to deal with his egomania.

"I hear Mike Lupica's daughter is in therapy for anorexia. It's about time, after all the bullshit she's had to eat from her dad's mouth all these years she's bound to just throw up as much as possible."

See? It's all in good fun to make a few jokes about mental health. It's not at all an asshole and mean thing to do.

But nobody gets Rodriguez’s Oprah moment now in some big room or hall or under some circus tent somewhere, with a roomful of Oprah Winfreys firing questions at him the way Oprah fired them at Alex’s patron saint, Lance Armstrong.

Yes, nobody gets the big media event that Alex Rodriguez so obviously owes the world. He wrote a letter stating he was wrong and is trying to move on with his life after serving his suspension in order to cut down on as much of the distractions as possible in order to prepare for the upcoming season. It's a very selfish move. Most players would be lauded for publicly apologizing and then trying to make sure they are as small of a distraction as possible, but for Mike Lupica this is just another strike against A-Rod. He owes the world a circus and it's a mark against his character he won't provide one on demand.

Most of the fans to whom Rodriguez spoke on Tuesday — and from the heart! — are probably wishing that there was some way for Stoudemire to take Alex Rodriguez back to Texas with him.

Snark is fun. I still would love to know what Mike Lupica wanted A-Rod to do. Other than hold a press conference and answer all of the questions that the media isn't entitled to have answered to their own satisfaction of course. A-Rod has told his story to those people who matter, he apologized in cutesy form, and now he has stated he wants to move on. Hate it or love it, doesn't matter.

He writes an open letter the way Ray Rice wrote an open letter in the Baltimore Sun. Rice did it because he needs a job. Rodriguez has one, a real good one with the New York Yankees, at least $61 million still coming to him over the next few years.

So A-Rod didn't have to write the letter, but he did anyway. This is clearly another mark against A-Rod's character that he at least pretended to give a shit. Maybe if Lupica pretended to give a shit about his writing then he wouldn't be seen as the egomaniac bully that he's seen by many in the media as being.

Bosch, his drug dealer? He goes to jail now for 48 months, three months shy of the maximum sentence he could have gotten for operating the kind of drug ring he was operating.

I can't believe this drug dealer got close to the maximum sentence for his crime. Why isn't the court system easier on drug dealers?

The star of that ring, still batting cleanup there, still a big name at Biogenesis, was Alex Rodriguez. He doesn’t go to jail. He goes to spring training. Is this a great country or what?

Apparently Mike Lupica advocates for the drug user to go to jail, while the drug dealer roams free? What a great country this is! A-Rod uses the drugs, but he gets off scot free while the poor innocent guy who dealt the drugs had the book thrown at him. Why can't Mike Lupica live in a world where the authorities ignore cartels and go after the real people who create the drug problem, which is the drug user? Obviously the reason there is a drug problem in the United States is that law enforcement has been going after the people who deal the drugs when they should be going after the people who use the drugs.

Mike Lupica is really working hard to make A-Rod seem like a bad guy. He's taking the side of and advocating for a drug dealer now.

Even after he admitted to being a drug user, he managed to have his best baseball October and lead the Yankees to a World Series. Judge me on what I do going forward, he said back in 2009. That is exactly what everybody has done.

And absolutely judge A-Rod on what he's done since then, which includes his second PED-related offense. He's been judged and punished. He apologized and either accept it and shut up or don't accept it and tell everyone what A-Rod should have done instead of apologize. Oh, and call A-Rod a snitch for ratting on a drug dealer, as if this shows another moral fallacy in his genetic code.

Now he is back, panhandling for redemption and another second chance,

He's making $61 million and doesn't need redemption or a second chance because he's getting one simply because he's making $61 million. That's another point that Lupica misses. A-Rod doesn't need his forgiveness. He doesn't want to be hated, but he isn't Ray Rice trying to get back into the sport. A-Rod is a Yankee because they owe him too much money otherwise. So he doesn't have to apologize and he doesn't have to talk to Mike Lupica about his "story."

trying to make one last first impression, the richest drug informant in all of baseball history.

Boy, Mike Lupica is riding this whole "A-Rod told on a drug dealer" thing hard isn't he? I'm not sure calling A-Rod a snitch will have the effect he wants it to have.

One more record for Alex Rodriguez.

You are a petty, sad man who has mocked A-Rod for apologizing, seeking mental health assistance and think a drug dealer should go to jail for a shorter span of time than a drug user. No one likes A-Rod, but we are stuck with him. No one likes you. Go away.