“Nobody wants to hurt anybody. That?s why it?s
so critical to be right. Nobody wants to destroy anybody else or be
destructive, and that?s the bottom line.?

That’s Sports Illustrated writer Selena Roberts, from a radio interview plugging her forthcoming book on New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez.

Odd that she apparently wasn’t so scrupluous about accuracy when she was pushing phony rape allegations against the Duke lacrosse team — a story she helped bring to a national audience from her former soapbox at The New York Times. (And one she still hasn’t fully acknowledged she got wrong.)

A-Rod is hardly a paragon of virtue, let alone a compulsive truth-teller. But Roberts’ book, filled with all sorts of salacious, thinly sourced allegations (along with a few genuine gotchas), is getting pushback
from presumably reputable people who’ve known Rodriguez for years. Those A-Rod watchers deny some
of Roberts’ charges, such as her conclusion, based on nothing more
than surmise (and a suggestion from Jose Canseco), that Rodriguez started juicing in high school.

The N&O’s abysmal coverage of the lacrosse fiasco certainly drew more notice in these parts. Still, when you see these new charges leveled against A-Rod, all I can say is, consider the source.