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A-Rod not mad at Chipper
A-Rod not mad at Chipper, By: Anthony Rieber
August 11, 2007
CLEVELAND - Before hitting career home run No. 501 in the second inning Friday night, Alex Rodriguez absolved Chipper Jones of any wrongdoing in his first public comments on the Braves third baseman's statements about A-Rod and steroids.
"Chipper and I go back to high school days," Rodriguez said before the Yankees played the Indians at Jacobs Field. "We're good friends. And I really don't think Chipper said anything that was out of line.
"I think it's just the reality of things. You can't be naive. In an era where we're in, with great accomplishments come a lot of questions, and that's going to be inevitable. So I don't really think Chipper was talking specifically about me. I thought he was talking in general. He even put himself in there. So I don't have any issues with that."
Before the Mets' 4-3 win over the Braves on Wednesday night, Jones addressed assertions by Jose Canseco that he has dirt coming out on A-Rod in his next book (Canseco has refused to say whether his "dirt" is steroid-related). Jones said A-Rod will have to answer steroid questions as long as he continues to put up prodigious home run totals.
"If I had to pose a guess on A-Rod, I would say no," Jones said. "But I don't know. He's going to have to answer the questions. And that goes for everybody that approaches the number. It's just so farfetched, the numbers that those guys are putting up. And a lot of it comes from the era that they're playing in."
On Thursday, when those quotes and others like them became public, Jones angrily accused the New York media of stirring up something out of nothing. That view is shared by Yankees manager Joe Torre, who addressed the matter Friday.
"What did he say?" Torre asked. "I read the article. I didn't think he said what it appeared he said ... All he said was, 'When he gets to that point, I'm sure there's going to be some questions.' It's probably true. It doesn't mean now that I question Alex, it just means that that's where we are until we gain the trust back. People are going to be looking down their nose at us a little bit."
Rodriguez did not say if he had spoken to Jones, who had said he wanted to call A-Rod to clarify the issue. Before Rodri.guez could be asked, he was whisked away to a hitters' meeting.
A-Rod returned to the lineup after missing Wednesday's game in Toronto because of a sore right calf after he was hit by a pitch from Toronto's Josh Towers on Tuesday.
He homered in his first at-bat Friday, a 415-foot blast to centerfield off righthander Fausto Carmona. It was Rodriguez's 37th of the season and first since he hit No. 500 last Saturday at Yankee Stadium.
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