A-Rod The Vogue Coverboy

Alex Rodriguez will grace the cover of Men'sVogue come April, though they forwarded the story to me today. The story follows Rodriguez through the years both on and off the baseball diamond.

The April issue will also include an in-depth look at the A-Rod regimen, detailing the many strenuous exercise programs the Yankee third baseman relies upon. Just reading through them made me tired...

Monday calls for a series of "440-, 220-, and 110-yard sprints," which never exceed a mile in length because according to Rodriguez, "When you run long distances, you start getting slower."

Tuesday includes sandpit work and stair sprints. Wednesday has A-Rod complete eighteen straight 110 yard dashes. Thursday is uphill running day! Friday is when Rodriguez does his "high-speed plyometric movements to build muscle." When you have to Wikipedia an exercise, you know the guy's for real... or I'm fat. One of those.

Responding to questions about the shocking World Series opt-out fiasco, Rodriguez said, "I was at home with my wife eating dinner and all of a sudden it came on the television...when my wife talks about that day, she says I looked like a ghost."

I have only perused through the retrospective briefly, but below are some quotes from others in baseball discussing A-Rod. Some of the contributors and statements may surprise you:

What a long strange trip it's been . . .

"I'm Alex's biggest fan. I brag on him so much that my teammates are sick of me talking about him." - Derek Jeter, 1997

On A-Rod, the leader . . .

"He is there for me. He makes being a major leaguer easier. There is nothing you can't talk to him about. He will come up and volunteer things, tell you what he knows from being in the game. He's special. I don't think people see that part of him." - Robinson Cano, 2007

On last year's issues off the field . . .

"I actually think all that stuff kind of helped in a weird way... He was already focused, and now he really focused. It was like, 'Write what you want. I don't care.' I really think his attitude was 'screw it.' I think it was kind of liberating to him, to know that they could only touch him if he let them." - Johnny Damon, 2007

On the media's pension for assigning blame on Rodriguez . . .

"The focal point of the New York media is that Alex has screwed it up again. We know as players that's not how it works." - Curt Schilling, November 2007

On the infamous Esquire interview in which A-Rod ripped Jeter . . .

"What was ignored at the time - and has been all but forgotten ever since - is that [Scott] Boras, who was present at the interview, had egged A-Rod on by reminding him of how many more home runs he'd had than either Jeter or Boston's Nomar Garciaparra...Rodriguez was devastated by the article, but he never made any excuses, never claimed that he had been misquoted, never protested that he had lauded Jeter countless times during that same interview." - Seth Mnookin of Men's Vogue Magazine

On being the richest man in Major League Baseball . . .

"At one point, he was everything that was right with baseball, and after he signed that big contract, the perception is that he's everything that's wrong with it. He has been tremendous for us. But the king wears the heaviest crown." - Brian Cashman, 2007