Richard Ben Cramer, who clipped the wings of the sainted Yankee Clipper Joe DiMaggio in his last sports biography, is already at work on the life story of the latest—and lately departed—Yankee Great, Alex Rodriguez, for Twelve. And though Cramer promises not to do a “DiMaggio” on the temperamental star who is also baseball’s highest-paid player, he does see parallels between A-Rod’s just-announced free agency and the world’s oldest profession.
In a bit of timing that was roundly booed by sports fans and press, Rodriguez’s agent, Scott Boras, chose the fourth game of the World Series last Sunday to announce his star client’s decision not to exercise his option with the Yankees. Since the only blemishes on Rodriguez otherwise gaudy baseball resume are his woeful post-season performances, the attempt to steal the thunder of teams still playing in October was seen by baseball fans and officials as arrogant.
“There was no reason to make an announcement last night other than to try to put his selfish interests and that of one individual player above the overall good of the game,” MLB’s CEO Bob Dupuy told the AP the next day.
Cramer, when reached by PW at his home on Maryland’s eastern shore, wasn’t surprised by the untimely announcement. “Boras is probably going to shop him around. Just judging by his track record, he will spread himself around like a lady of the evening.” When PW’s correspondent asked if this was defining an agent as “basically a pimp,” Cramer laughed and added . “Well, exactly. He’s a procurer.”
Such blunt talk isn’t new to Cramer. His 2000 book on DiMaggio, published by S&S, exposed DiMaggio’s cheapness, mob connections and rough treatment of Marilyn Monroe. His other books, What It Takes, a journal of the 1988 presidential election, and How Israel Lost, also garnered a lot of attention. PW wondered what he had in store for A-Rod, one of baseball’s most talented, yet disliked players.
“I’ve been working on it more than a year,” Cramer said. “It’s a full biography. It’s also a look at what the modern sports star is. It’s a whole different life than we think of from prior days. And it’s a very serious business. Alex is a serious guy and a smart guy and he means to be the best in whatever he does. His work ethic doesn’t extend just to baseball. He has a real estate company that he’s dead serious about. It’s not just a fancy house or two. He’s making a real business out of it.”
Pub date? “Other people have asked me this,” Cramer says laughing. “My hope is to start writing this winter. I’m still researching. The way I look at it, it’s nothing but holes. I’m going to follow him until the book is done, that’s for sure. This take-off and landing [opting for free agency] if that’s what you’d call it, does kind of offer a capstone if you want to look at it that way.”
When asked if A-Rod was cooperating Cramer said, “Yeah, he’s helping me.” But, he insisted, he is not doing a “DiMaggio” on Rodriguez. “No, no, no, no. It’s a whole different kind of thing.”
With A-Rod most likely changing teams, where A-Rod ends up in 2008 might affect sales of this book. “Undoubtedly,” Cramer agrees. “I mean if he goes to the Arizona Diamondbacks, that’s different from going to the Dodgers or the Angels. That’s natural, but I’ve long since learned to my dismay that I have no commercial savvy at all. For me to speculate about a book’s chance for sale, is, you know, worse than me speculating about the Chinese.” Laughing it off he adds, “It’s a total scrap shoot as far as I can figure.”
As for his move from S&S to Twelve, the upstart house that is still in its first year, Cramer said, . “S&S did not want this book, so we took it to Jon Karp and, God bless him, he’s very excited. There’s a second book in the deal. I’m not sure what it is. I guess I’ll have had my say about baseball at that point.”
“We’re thrilled, honored and ecstatic about publishing Richard Ben Cramer,” Jonathan Karp, publisher/editor-in-chief of Twelve told PW. “He’s a singular writer. I’m a bigger Richard Ben Cramer fan than I am an A-Rod fan and this is all about publishing one of America’s greatest literary journalists, that’s what this is about.”
Rodriguez is a lightning rod for controversy and recently former major leaguer Jose Canseco—perhaps trying to shill for his next book deal after Juiced—insinuated that A-Rod might be using steroids. “[Canseco] never said that,” Cramer corrects. “What he said was, ‘Wait to you hear what I’ve got to say about Alex Rodriguez.’ Yeah, and when the interviewer actually said ‘steroids?’ Canseco said, ‘Well, wait and see.’ So I would be shocked if Alex has put anything in his body except the healthiest possible stuff. You cannot imagine how this guy eats. Literally, Cynthia, his wife, carries salad dressing in her purse so they can go into a restaurant, and order the salad dry, and have the proper flaxseed oil in the salad dressing. They are health nuts.
“I didn’t start out [thinking] that it was going to get done quick,” continued Cramer, “so that I could take advantage of the news of the month or the news of the week. Everybody recommends acceleration to me, but I’ve never tried it.” Cramer laughs before adding, “This guy’s news value is not going to diminish. He’s a crossover star.”
Exactly where Rodriguez crosses over to next will be the hot stove story of baseball’s long winter.
