FWIW, if someone had PI, and the time and will to do this, they could look at MI who played a lot vs. Texas from 2001 thru 2003, and then see how they did in blowouts, late in the game, via queries like this…

I looked at something similar to this, but with every middle infielder who batted in a 5+ run game in the 7th inning or later and A-Rod at short over his whole career, and then compared how they hit in those situations compared to how they usually hit. I wrote up the results here:

http://www.3-dbaseball.net/2009/04/was-rod-tipping-pitches.html

if you’re interested, but basically, batters went from hitting like Adam Kennedy to hitting like Miguel Tejada with A-Rod at short late in lopsided games.

Buck Showalter was on the Michael Kay Show today, and he denied the story. Showalter sounded very credible, at least to me.

Steve Lombardi wrote:

FWIW, IIRC, once A-Rod got to Texas, and the Esquire interview was done, he and Jeter were no longer BFF.

And this was Arod’s way of getting back into Jeter’s good graces?

FWIW, if someone had PI, and the time and will to do this, they could look at MI who played a lot vs. Texas from 2001 thru 2003, and then see how they did in blowouts, late in the game, via queries like this:

http://tinyurl.com/djbhkn

I was looking at baseballmusings.com to see how A-Rod did in blowouts with the Rangers. Here are the numbers (not sure how this will format, but please bear with me if they don’t look OK!)

Total numbers
2001 632 201 34 1 52 135 75 6 16 131 0 9 17 0 .318 .399 .622
2002 624 187 27 2 57 142 87 12 10 122 0 4 14 0 .300 .392 .623
2003 607 181 30 6 47 118 87 10 15 126 0 6 16 0 .298 .396 .600

Trailing by Four Runs

2001 34 8 2 0 1 6 3 0 1 8 0 0 1 0 .235 .316 .382
2002 28 8 1 1 4 5 0 0 1 6 0 0 1 0 .286 .310 .821
2003 37 17 6 0 6 13 3 0 0 9 0 0 2 0 .459 .500 1.108

Trailing by Five or More Runs
Season AB Hits 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB HBP K SH SF GDP CI BA OBA Slug%
2001 48 12 3 0 4 6 10 0 2 11 0 1 4 0 .250 .393 .562
2002 45 13 0 0 2 5 6 0 0 10 0 0 0 0 .289 .373 .422
2003 61 14 1 0 2 4 7 0 3 15 0 1 0 0 .230 .333 .344

Leading by Four Runs
2001 21 4 2 0 0 0 1 0 0 4 0 0 0 0 .190 .227 .286
2002 23 6 1 1 0 4 2 0 0 9 0 1 0 0 .261 .308 .391
2003 21 7 1 0 4 7 5 1 0 3 0 0 1 0 .333 .462 .952

Leading by Five or More Runs
Season AB Hits 2B 3B HR RBI BB IBB HBP K SH SF GDP CI BA OBA Slug%
2001 45 17 0 0 5 17 6 1 1 5 0 2 1 0 .378 .444 .711
2002 41 11 2 0 3 6 5 1 1 6 0 0 1 0 .268 .362 .537
2003 40 14 1 0 1 6 5 0 0 9 0 1 2 0 .350 .413 .450

Jeff Brantley and Michael Young said it never happened.

FWIW, IIRC, once A-Rod got to Texas, and the Esquire interview was done, he and Jeter were no longer BFF.

Interesting. I wonder how many basehits Jeter got from all of this.
———

I do too…. considering that they were “friends” at this point and both SSs. There were only a handful of players who A-Rod could have tipped to and gotten tips from… Jeter being a potential candidate.

I wish the reporter had asked Spencer the question – did Roberts interview you for the book? That’s what I would do with any of these tell-alls involving baseball players. A few weeks ago, Jason Giambi made a whole big deal about how he wouldn’t do a tell-all book. Yet he was a source for “The Yankee Years”!

Within the article Spencer says, “It was brought up. I overheard it but not from specific people,” “I think I overheard it in our clubhouse,” and “I remember hearing that.” But he also says, “If we had noticed it, it would have been handled, in house with the players not with the coaching staff, personally with him first as friends and teammates and if it became a problem we’d have to bring the team in,” “But that never came up.” Either Spencer is misquoted or lying.