By title, Mike Borzello was the Yankees’ bullpen catcher. But those around the team understood that for the past four years, he was mostly known as Alex Rodriguez’s confidant, counselor and confessor.
“Nobody in the last four years, including his wife because she wasn’t on the road, spent more time with Alex than I did,” Borzello said by phone yesterday.
Thus, Borzello had a front-row seat to Rodriguez’s life – in the gym, in the clubhouse, at home, in social settings, to and from games in his car. “Then he called me in the morning and we did it all over again.”
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With that up-close view, he felt best positioned to defend Rodriguez against insinuations of steroid use made in Jose Canseco’s book.
“In four years I was with him 24 hours a day, and not one time did I ever hear, see or get wind of anything having to do with performance enhancing drugs, steroids, HGH, anything,” said Borzello, now the Dodgers’ catching instructor. “No way, with as much as this guy trusted me, would he have kept that part of his life secret from me. He trusted me with everything, and I was with him every day all day long. It would have been impossible to show me everything behind the curtain except for this. He is not that bright to be able to pull that off.
“He talked to me about everything. If he had issues with Scott Boras, issues with Joe Torre, disagreements with other guys on the team, if he did or didn’t like an acquisition the Yankees made. Real topics. Not what kind of juice he had with his breakfast that morning. And he didn’t mention this, no way.”
Borzello, a Yankees employee from 1996-2007, painted Rodriguez as a player devoted to working out. Borzello said no matter what time he goes to bed, Rodriguez is working out by 8 the following morning – home or away. Borzello detailed rigid pre- and post-game regimens apart from the team.
“I don’t question him at all,” Borzello said. “Some guys you say, ‘Wow, he got big,’ and you never saw them in the weightroom. [That player] does nothing and has 30 pounds of muscle and you go, ‘That’s fishy.’ ”
A-Rod? “No way,” Borzello said. “He is unbelievable.”
Borzello admitted “anger” at Canseco’s allegations: “You want to rip [Rodriguez] for the way he acts or the things he says, go ahead. There are enough people dumb enough now to say, ‘See, he is on that stuff.’ All you have to do is be accused. So yes, it does bother me. Because I’ve seen what this guy has done and seen how much it matters to him. No matter how tired it makes him or how grueling or rigorous the workout is, to be the best, he will do it. It means that much to him. I believe in him. I don’t think he would have been stupid enough to do [steroids] to tarnish all that work.”
In Canseco’s book, “Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars and the Battle to Save Baseball,” Canseco claims Rodriguez expressed curiosity in the late 1990s about how to obtain steroids, and Canseco introduced A-Rod to a distributor. Borzello did not know Rodriguez then, but he describes a player who, A-Rod‘s lifelong friends will concur, will have an occasional beer, but mostly is “afraid of drugs and alcohol.”
“I’m not saying he didn’t do research on [steroids]. I’m sure he wanted to know what is making all of these other guys so good,” Borzello said. “But all of us in his small, small circle would be blown away [if it was proved Rodriguez used steroids]. It would shock me to no end. If in four years this guy entrusted me with his entire life and this is what he kept from me. No way. I would never believe that.”
In the book, Canseco writes Rodriguez made a play for his then-wife, and Borzello figures Canseco has an “ax to grind. . . . This is Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano. He gets all the benefits of playing, and then when he can’t play any more, he starts ratting out everyone to make money that way.”
In the four-year period Borzello vouches for Rodriguez, A-Rod won two MVPs and retained his huge production numbers from earlier in his career, a period Canseco insinuates was touched by steroids.
“He is a big, strong kid with a desire to be the greatest player of all time,” Borzello said. “As God is my witness, strike me down today, swear on a bible in front of Congress, not one time, never [did A-Rod take steroids in the past four years]. I believe that.”