Kevin Baker's book is here!

Kevin Baker's book is here!
"... an exemplary sports book..." Kirkus Reviews

Monday, December 10, 2012

No Centaur Painting for A-Rod?

Along with Hideki Matsui's porn collection, Jeter's overnight gift-baskets, and John Sterling's stolen 10,000-year-old crystal skull, few great Yankee legends have delighted children more than the oft-told story of Alex Rodriguez's bedroom centaur portrait.

For years, the tale persisted that aerobics instructors, supermodels and B-list scream queens who visited A-Rod's personal sleep & sexytime bunker were treated to the vision of Heaven: a giant oil painting that showed the Yankee thirdsacker's face transposed onto the body of a war horse -- sort of like a merman, but in the style of Mr. Ed. It would have foreshadowed the incredible Calgary Stampede of sexual foreplay that was about to take place on the hallowed mattress beneath it. My God, in moments of sadness and insecurity, just thinking about that remarkable painting pulled me back from the ledge. I never thought I'd see it, but that was OK. Just knowing it was there soothed me in times of great distress.

Now, we're supposed to accept that it is not true.  A-Rod reportedly told a group of people during a Miami arts weekend tour of his mansion that there is no such painting.


Apparently, there no Sea Biscuit A-Rod.

Still... don't we wish we could have been there? Some guy, probably with a white belt that matched his shoes, asked A-Rod, "Hey, where's that there painting of, you know, you being the frickin' horse?"

A friend of mine once toured Graceland and asked the guide to see the room where Elvis shot the television. She became really huffy and agitated. She said the story was not true, and she was tired of hearing it. Well, nobody believed her. They knew it was just her job to deny the truth.

I say the same about A-Rod's centaur.

I refuse to believe it does not exist. I refuse to accept the words of those who would throw water on the fundamental beliefs upon which we - the lost tribe of true Yankee fans - have based our lives. No. I believe in A-Rod's centaur. It is out there, somewhere. This is one neigh I shall not hear.

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