A-Rod Not Bothered By Torre Book

From John Harper:

Alex Rodriguez told friends Monday that he is "not bothered at all" by the reports that Joe Torre apparently took some shots at him in his forthcoming book, and dismissed talk of an "A-Fraud" persona or any Derek Jeter obsession as old news that no longer applies to his standing in the Yankee clubhouse.

"He laughed at the stuff because he is so beyond all of that," one person close to A-Rod said Monday. "Personally he feels like he's in a great space in his life and felt very comfortable last year in the clubhouse and with his relationship with his teammates."

As for Torre, A-Rod indicated that anything his former manager may say about him couldn't hurt him because, as one friend put it, "He doesn't feel like he had any real relationship with (Torre)."

In fact, people close to A-Rod say that he heard Torre characterized him as "a pretty boy" to his confidants during the four years they were together as player and manager, that Torre's close relationship with Jeter kept him from ever warming up to A-Rod.

A-Rod also told people that nothing Torre could say would be more revealing of how he felt about his player than the act of batting him eighth in the lineup in Game 4 of the 2006 playoff series with the Tigers.

"Alex was really hurt by that," one friend of A-Rod's said Monday. "He believed that Torre did that to embarrass him and he knew then what Torre thought of him.

"So anything that comes out now wouldn't compare to that. He's just surprised that Torre would talk about these kinds of things because he always told the players the clubhouse and the bond with teammates was sacred, and not to be broken this way."

Without reading the book and knowing exactly what's in it, this is clearly Joe's worst offense (so far). Torre does come out looking like a hypocrite with this book. So in that respect I agree with some of you who are bashing him.

Also, it's fairly obvious that these two really don't like each other, and probably never did.

"He's heard the A-Fraud stuff, and he has admitted he tried too hard to make everyone like him when he came over to the Yankees. But since then he has become more at ease in the clubhouse, and he believes he is more accepted as one of the guys. He has taken the young Latin guys like Melky (Cabrera) and (Robinson) Cano under his wing and they really look up to him. He believes things are a lot different now."

Over the past two seasons A-Rod has seemed to find his place in that clubhouse. And seeing people like Pettitte, Damon, and Cashman come out publicly to defend him in recent days is more evidence of this.