As several Squawker readers noted in our comments section yesterday, Joe Torre contradicted his own book regarding the use of the term “A-Fraud” in the clubhouse to describe Alex Rodriguez. Wonder if he’s going to claim his book misstated the facts, now that he has been caught in a lie?
Here’s what his book said (my emphasis added):
Back in 2004, at first Rodriguez did his best to try to fit into the Yankee culture – his cloying, B-grade actor best. He slathered on the polish. People in the clubhouse, including teammates and support personnel, were calling him “A-Fraud” behind his back.
And here’s what Torre said on “Larry King Live”:
“The A-Fraud thing was more of a joking type thing. I know Larry Bowa used to take him out to hit ground balls after he had a — maybe a bad night or had made an error. And he says, ‘Who is it today, is it A-Rod or A-Fraud,’ you know? And it was right there in front of him. It wasn’t like anything was said behind his back.”
Co-author Tom Verducci recently criticized the tabloids for blowing the A-Fraud thing out of proportion. In a recent interview, he said:
It was funny to see the tabloids misrepresent the “A-Fraud” reference and still then chase down Pettitte and Damon about it; the term appears in the book in a very specifically defined manner: only in regard to guys in the clubhouse (not Torre) noticing that Alex was trying too hard to fit in, only in 2004, his first season in New York. Pettitte was playing in Houston and Damon in Boston that year!
And Bowa was managing in Philadelphia that year, so how would he know how the term was used?
I do find it funny that 1) Torre and Verducci literally can’t keep their stories straight about the use of “A-Fraud” in the book, and 2) Verducci is complaining that the tabloids misrepresented what was in “The Yankee Years,” given that the book describes A-Rod as a “cloying, B-grade actor” who “slathered on the polish”!
Later on today, I will show more examples of how Joe Torre misrepresented the contents of his book on “Larry King Live.” But in the meantime, please tell us what you think!
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