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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/2009/11/21/2009-11-21_alex_rodriguez_sucart.html

MIAMI – An entire baseball season has passed since Alex Rodriguez acknowledged using steroids at that awkward spring training press conference in February, and the Yankees’ $275 million man has rebounded quite nicely, going from steroid zero to World Series hero in just nine months.

Rodriguez was a beleaguered man after Sports Illustrated reported that he had tested positive for two anabolic steroids in 2003, but he recovered from both his steroid scandal and hip surgery to help the Yankees run away with the American League East. He silenced the critics who said he couldn’t perform in the clutch by hitting .365 in the playoffs and driving in 18 runs in 13 games. He won his first World Series ring and paraded through a blizzard of confetti up the Canyon of Heroes.

At the end, A-Rod even got the girl: The notorious skirt-chaser started dating “Almost Famous” star Kate Hudson in May, and their blossoming romance has fueled rumors about future wedding bells. Rodriguez has already bought Hudson a ring: Just last week, the slugger gave his girlfriend her own World Series trophy, a $39,000 Louis Vuitton white-gold ring with pink sapphires and diamonds.

But the cousin Rodriguez claims persuaded him to use steroids from 2001 to 2003 – and then obtained and administered the banned drugs – has not fared so well since A-Rod’s mea culpa moment. Banks began foreclosure proceedings on Yuri Sucart’s Miami home and three South Florida rental properties in the months after Rodriguez’s Feb. 17 news conference.

Perhaps even more disturbing for Sucart, who spent the past 15 years as A-Rod’s anonymous go-fer, his rich and famous cousin dragged him out of the shadows and turned him into another steroid sidekick, much like Roger Clemens’ former trainer, Brian McNamee, and Barry Bonds’ boyhood friend Greg Anderson.

“I think he was disappointed that he was blamed for everything,” says John Ruiz, a Miami attorney who represented Sucart in one of the foreclosure proceedings.

Unlike McNamee and Anderson, professional trainers who worked with world-class athletes for years, Sucart is not a fitness guru – he’s a pudgy middle-aged man who suffers from lower back pain and other health problems. Rodriguez has a history of letting others take the blame for his blunders – agent Scott Boras, for for example, took the rap after Rodriguez announced in the middle of the 2007 World Series that he was opting out of his contract with the Yankees. But the idea that an elite ballplayer like A-Rod would use performance-enhancing drugs based on the recommendation of a cousin who spent the past decade laying out his clothes and making dinner reservations strains credibility, and Ruiz says it was not right for Rodriguez to drag Sucart into his steroid scandal.

“Was it fair? I don’t think so,” Ruiz says. “Yuri is a very good-hearted person but there are times in life when they use you and abuse you and it gets to you.”

Sucart may be related to one of the most famous athletes in the world but he seems to shun the spotlight even more than Rodriguez craves it. Sucart and his wife, Carmen, did not respond to interview requests; a woman at his home threw a bottle at a metal gate in their driveway when a Daily News reporter asked to speak to Sucart. Several friends and associates said Sucart has asked them to not talk to reporters.

“I don’t know much about him,” one neighbor says. “He keeps to himself.”

Sucart, who is 13 years older than his famous cousin, took the young A-Rod under his wing when the Rodriguez family moved from New York to the Dominican Republic in the early 1980s, according to an ESPN profile published earlier this year. Sucart had been A-Rod’s surrogate big brother, but their roles changed after Rodriguez became a baseball star in the mid-1990s. Sucart became his cousin’s personal assistant, a yes-man who picked up dry cleaning, bought airline tickets and chauffeured Rodriguez to the ballpark. Sucart, once Rodriguez’s role model, had become his flunky, dependent on his cousin’s cash to support his family.

Sucart bought three rental units in Miami to supplement his income, but the landlord business apparently has not worked out for him.

One former tenant, Maria Botella, said she saw more of Carmen than her husband when she lived in a Sucart-owned pink condo in a working-class Miami neighborhood.

“They were not good landlords,” Botella says. “They never made repairs. All they ever wanted was the rent.”

Ruiz says he doesn’t know of any investigations by law enforcement that were spurred by Rodriguez’s February press conference linking Sucart to drug activity. Sucart was banned from Yankee Stadium and other Major League Baseball parks for his role in the Rodriguez steroid scandal, and while baseball sources say nobody sees Sucart as a steroid kingpin, that doesn’t mean they want to give him access to locker rooms and training facilities. His relationship with frequent travel companion Angel Presinal, the trainer who worked with A-Rod for years even though he was banned from MLB ballpark after an October 2001 incident involving an unmarked gym bag full of steroids at the Toronto airport, is troubling to MLB officials.

A friend of A-Rod’s who spoke on condition of anonymity says Sucart still works for the Yankee superstar. “Alex takes care of his family,” the friend says

Nonetheless, A-Rod, who collected $250 to $475 per signature at a Steiner Sports autograph session attended by hundreds of Yankee fans earlier this month, apparently isn’t supporting Sucart enough to stave off foreclosure. US Bank initiated foreclosure proceedings on Sucart’s two-bedroom home on Aug. 12, according to Miami-Dade County court records. Sucart and his wife paid $675,000 for the house in June of 2006, but thanks to the real-estate crash, the market value of the home is now $444,635, according to county real-estate records.

Deutsche Bank began foreclosure proceedings on April 3 on a four-bedroom apartment Sucart purchased in February of 2005. Wachovia Mortgage initiated foreclosure proceedings against two other rental properties owned by Sucart and his wife in July.

Ruiz says that like thousands of other Florida residents struggling to hold onto their homes, Sucart got entangled with banks that offered him mortgage loans he couldn’t pay off. But none of those struggling Floridians works for cousins who made $33 million playing third base for the New York Yankees this year.

“I don’t know if he’s asked Alex for help,” Ruiz says.

Working as A-Rod’s Man Friday gave Sucart a front-row seat to a world of celebrity and wealth that few baseball fans ever see. Sucart probably understood that the price for that seat would be his dignity, that he would have to become subservient to a younger cousin he once mentored. Many wealthy athletes support entourages of relatives and boyhood buddies whose only purpose in life appears to be running errands, and Sucart seems to have gladly accepted the fact he supported his family by waiting in the car for hours while A-Rod dined with strippers and starlets.

But he probably didn’t understand that his professional responsibilities would also include taking the hit when his boss got caught cheating with banned drugs. A-Rod’s steroid troubles seem like ancient history after the team’s 27th World Series championship, but Yuri Sucart will never escape the taint that came when Rodriguez dragged him into his scandal at his Feb. 17 press conference.

Sucart will go down in history as the cousin who scored steroids for Alex Rodriguez and shot him up with them.

“Everybody wants a scapegoat,” Ruiz says.

That’s cool, Steve. Thanks. More than proving any point on A-Rod, the most important thing is that the team is winning!

Steve Lombardi wrote:

Hey, Lisa, I think the bet is moot now – A-Rod has proven that he is capable of great, unmatched, clutch batting in post-season play. The record is now clear on that, and, I admit to it.

Of course he is; from 1994-01 he hit .340/.375/.566/.941 in the playoffs

Hey, Lisa, I think the bet is moot now – A-Rod has proven that he is capable of great, unmatched, clutch batting in post-season play. The record is now clear on that, and, I admit to it.

If you want to go on with the bet, that’s fine. But, you’ve already won, in a sense, and keeping it would only seem silly and strange – should the Yankees reach the WS and A-Rod doesn’t put up good numbers…as he’s already proven that he can come through on the big stage in NY. Make sense?

@ lisaswan:
Or, should we have the Stanley or Carter moment an auto-override on the BA marks?

@ lisaswan:
It’s a bet, and, FWIW, I hope you win – because that means:

A. Yanks win the ALCS
B. A-Rod has a great WS
C. Odds increased that Yanks win WS

I’ll be more than happy to eat that crow.

But, it was to be one winner, one loser, or nada. We can’t both lose or win. So, if A-Rod hits .320 AND has a Stanley moment, it’s a push. Or, if he has a Joe Carter moment and hits .260, it’s a push. Make sense?

@Steve Lombardi: I had Squawker Jon, my consigliere, review this. He agreed with me that your terms are reasonable and fair. But, he pointed out that we each might each end up losing this bet; that A-Rod could end up having both a Joe Carter and a Bob Stanley moment! Heck, knowing A-Rod, he could do that in the same game!

I’m okay with that possibility, though, that we both might be writing that A-Rod is special/not special. Or would that be considered a push?

Other than making sure we agree on that issue, I accept these terms!

@ lisaswan: You have until Game 3 of the ALCS to accept these terms.

@ lisaswan:
And, adding to the above, if A-Rod hits between .261 and .319 in the World Series, and/or, costs the Yankees a game and also wins the Yankees a game, then it’s a push and no one has to do anything.

@ lisaswan:

OK. Lisa, here’s my terms for the World Series:

Including Game 1 of the 2009 ALCS, A-Rod’s career post-season batting average is .294 – so, let’s use .290 as a baseline and add/subject 30 points to that…

If A-Rod bats .260 or less in the World Series or has a Bob Stanley type moment where his failure in a situation costs the Yankees a game that they should have won, then you, in your blog, have to do an entry entitled “On The Biggest Stage Of All, A-Rod Proves That He’s Not Special” and then write about how he did not do well, etc. In which, you have to give me a nod.

and

If A-Rod bats .320 or better in the World Series or has a Joe Carter type moment where his actions turn a potential loss into a win for the Yankees, then I, in this blog, will have to do an entry entitled “On The Biggest Stage Of All, A-Rod Proves That He’s Is Special” and then write about how he did not do well, etc. In which, I have to give you a nod.

OK?