It's Waxing Off, the only Deadspin feature with a toy surprise inside. This week's topic: What would you do if you had 20 minutes in a private club booth with Alex Rodriguez?
Katie P.:
My Evening With Alex..
Alex: "Hello, I'm Alex Rodriguez."
Katie P.: /repeated punches to the face
/chugs Sam Adams
/kicks lifeless orange man in the crotch
Fin.
— Katie P. is an unemployed railworker from Northern Albuquerque.
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CRyan:
10:15 p.m. I arrive at the club. The atmosphere is electric. There's a celebrity in the house. But who? As the big screens around the room begin to break the steroid news, I spot none other than Alex Rodriguez lounging at the bar. He's in a smoking jacket with a Cosmopolitan, his baseball mitt on the bar.
11 p.m. I wander over. This is my chance to ask him all the burning questions I have. What food do they serve in the clubhouse? Does Jorge Posada really urinate on his hands? How exactly, if possible, does Jeter brush his hair? He introduces himself. "I'm Alex Rodriguez," he says, catching himself as he begins to give the entire SAP announcement for the YES Network. We share a laugh.
11:05 p.m. Oh, but only for a moment. As more women approach I aim to keep him engaged. "What brings you to the Bahamas?" I ask. "I am representing them in the World Baseball Classic." I begin to explain how the Dominican Republic and Bahamas are two separate places, He interrupts me; "It was a dream of my mom's, for me to represent where we come from."
11:30 p.m. Small talk with Alex is difficult. "What do you like about the Bahamas, are you enjoying yourself?" I ask. "I like the culture here. There's a different culture here. It's just a real loosey-goosey culture." I'm confused. He's confused. We begin to discuss his playoff accomplishments.
11:31 p.m. Playoff accomplish discussion ends. The night begins to wind down. A single tear runs down Alex's face. "Are you sorry?" I ask. "For the steroids? The distractions? Lying to the world?" "No," he replies quickly. "The Vodka in my Cosmopolitan, it's a bit strong."
— CRyan is a junior at Villanova University who spends her time rooting for the Wildcats, worshipping the Yankees and shirking all responsibility in favor of playing outside. Read her during the week at 3:10 to Joba.
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Meghan:
Well, I hate the Yankees. I wish the whole steroid issue would go away or at least that we would admit most players used performance enhancing drugs and get over it. Honestly, I don't really care about A-Rod that much. I feel like celebrities, in general, should be left alone when they're out. But depending on my level of inebriation, I'd probably ask A-Rod one question. Really, Madonna, really?
— Meghan blogs at http://girlsdontknowsports.blogspot.com.
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Elway's Bitch:
Alex Rodriguez has just discovered that the world is about to learn how he got to the level of making $30 million a year. He has two choices. He can hunker down with some of the savviest PR minds in the world in the hopes of funneling out a plausible story. Or, he can engage in a fun probing session with a pretty woman in white plastic shoes.
So, he opts for the plastic. I understand that the latter option is much more pleasant than a stark conference room full of striped ties and silver cufflinks where smart people force you to admit things that will embarrass and humiliate you. No one wants to endure hours of that. But there is no chance Alex would agree to that. He couldn't.
Unfortunately, when you are no longer a wee 28-year-old, sometimes you just have to do the right thing. But Alex can't. Because he has absolutely no balls. He can hit the shit out of them, with or without scientific help. But he couldn't grow any with all the HGH brewing in BALCO.
Perhaps I am being harsh. Perhaps the first thing most men would do in this situation is make out with a pretty, young woman whose friends can't sit in an upright position without displaying their adorable, well thought out underwear. This is much more fun. I get that.
But you are Alex Rodriguez. You are not most people. You are the wide-eyed, innocent blue eyes of MLB's "The Best Players Are Not Doing Steroids" campaign, and you allowed yourself to be marketed this way. Because that's fun, too. So you decide to tell a story at your press conference about your Russian cosmonaut cousin Yuri and the Dominican Duane Reade pharmacy counter. And absolutely everyone knows that all of this is complete, ridiculous nonsense. But without balls, this is probably the best we could expect. I hope that girl got better.
— Elway's Bitch may or may not have owned very similar white plastic shoes in college.
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Jenn Bowen:
11 p.m. He introduces himself. "I'm Alex," he says, and we die. The security guard then ropes off his table. But we are in!
"Ok, breathe," I tell myself. "I'm in the right place at the right time and now is my chance to help the hometown team."
You see I was born and raised in Seattle going to Mariners games with my dad and watching A-Rod play. It's been a sad slide for the M's the past few years and I must admit I'm not much of a fan anymore. But...with Jr. coming home why not work my magic on Alex Rodriguez and try to get the Mariner's of 1996 back in Sea-town?
But now the timer is running on my time with A-Rod and I've got to try and come up with reasons why he should leave one of the premier teams in baseball and come home to what? The rain? Doesn't seem like much of a bargaining chip but it's worth a shot. He knows that some of his best years on record were during his early days in Seattle. Why not come home and be the hero again instead of playing second fiddle to Jeter.
Will I touch on the performance enhancing drug use? Probably not. My theory is he took them, so what? Maybe he hit the ball harder while he was taking them, but he still had to have the skill to hit the ball. And who's to say that the pitcher wasn't juiced also, so the pitch was faster and hitting the ball was that much more difficult. It's all a big circle jerk of questions and allegations so why can't baseball and the fans just move on. Let's take the players and the game for what they are and what they do now and Alex, let's talk.
— Jenn Bowen was a Seattle sports fan who has lost faith in her fellow Washingtonians. She continues to hope that the people of the state will come to their senses and start to appreciate and support the teams they have left.