Alex Rodriguez is making progress from his hip surgery, smacking three hits – including a pair of long balls – in an extended Spring Training game on Tuesday.

But with each passing day since the release of Selena Roberts’ new book, A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez, his reputation takes a bigger beating.

I, for one, can’t seem to muster up the energy to shed a tear, but regardless of my distaste for Rodriguez, it irks me how baseball – more than any other sport – has a tendency to tear down its heroes.

The best pitcher of our generation, Roger Clemens? Disgraced. The best hitter of our generation, Barry Bonds? Disgraced. The single-season home run champion (before Bonds, that is), Mark McGwire? Disgraced. The all-time hit leader, Pete Rose? Disgraced.

That’s a hell of a lot of star power that’s fallen from the skies, and no, I’m not suggesting that any of them didn’t have it coming. Throw A-Rod into the mix, as he has assumedly has joined the class of persona non grata in the Hall of Fame, and you’ve got yourself a very impressive class.

In fact, that got me thinking that since we’ve entered a whole new era in baseball, shouldn’t the Hall of Fame adapt? How about an asterisk section of the hall, where all the players whose accomplishments are shrouded by allegations of drugs, cheating, child abuse or unpaid parking tickets are lumped into a dark corner of the Hall? Surely, the Cooperstown staff can clear space in a broom closet somewhere.

As for Rodriguez, he’s already performed his mea culpa about the ‘roids. But it’s possible A-Roid was juicing as a high school student, Roberts’ book alleges. And MLB is apparently going to examine claims within the book that Rodriguez tipped pitches to opposing middle infielders during one-sided affairs.

Oh man, this just keeps getting better and better.

But I’m waiting for the revelation that Rodriguez tortured puppies before passing judgment.

Bill James, the stathead of all statheads, has a new book out called The Bill James Gold Mine 2009, in which he spews forth his usual stylings of statistical analysis and fascinating goodies.

Here are the some the highlights:

• Carlos Pena drew nine bases-loaded walks in 2008. To put that in perspective, that’s 50 per cent more than any hitter has had in a season over the past 20 years, with the only exception being D’Angelo Jimenez, who drew seven such walks in 2004. Pena, a a 46-HR man in 2007 who hit another 31 last year I can see, but D’Angelo Jimenez? Why the hell would anyone walk him with the bases loaded? In fact, what was he even doing up with bases loaded? Wouldn’t his manager have pinch-hit for him in that situation? Amazingly, Jimenez only had 17 bases loaded at bats that season, but he did seem to have a penchant for walking in 2004, drawing a career high 82 free passes.
• Grady Sizemore hit .202 on pulled ground balls in 2007 and he dipped to .172 last season. The reason? Teams are employing more infield shifts against Sizemore. He had a career high in homers in 2008, but hit 22 points lower than the career-best .290 he put up in 2006. If Sizemore is going to jack his batting average up to the point he will help fantasy owners, he’ll need to steer clear of the ground balls to the right side.
• The Florida Marlins made history last season when each of their regular infielders hit at least 25 home runs – a major league first. Shortstop Hanley Ramirez led the way with 33, while second baseman Dan Uggla and first baseman Mike Jacobs each jacked 32. Third baseman Jorge Cantu brought up the rear with 29 dingers, falling just one shy of giving the team a quartet of 30-homer infielders. Cantu started September like he planned to join them, smacking seven big flys in the first 14 games, but he failed to go yard over the final eight games.
• Met shortstop Jose Reyes was far away the major league leader by leading off 317 innings. He also led the majors by reaching base 118 times when leading off an inning. Can you please explain to me why Jerry Manuel considered shifting Reyes out of the lead-off slot? This dude is the best top-of-the-order hitter in baseball. You don’t mess with that.
• Apparently, Willie Harris – who again does not have a full-time role in 2009 – is one of the best defensive left fielders in the game. He played just 562 innings in left field last season, which is less than 40 per cent of the schedule, yet he was a +22, which means he made 22 plays that a LFer would not normally make. The major league leader among LFs was Carl Crawford, who was a +23. Harris was almost as good in 2007, when he recorded a +18 in 620 innings of work.
• The Seattle Mariners were the worst team in the AL in 2008, and were very close to scraping the bottom of the barrel in the entire majors. There were plenty of reasons why, but here’s a good one: they had a man on second base with no outs 116 times in 2008, but managed to score only 111 runs in those innings. No other major league team averaged less than a run per inning under those circumstances. The worst offenders? Adrian Beltre hit .216 with runners in scoring position. And he stuck around all season. At least the club had the sense to rid itself of Richie Sexson (.123) and Jose Vidro (.228) before they did too much damage.
• If the Royals are better this season – and I’m totally expecting them to make a big leap – how good is Joakim Soria going to be? He led all MLB relievers by recording 36 innings in which he retired the side in order. This dude is for real.

I have never been a baseball prospect, nor I have never been addicted to drugs. But, the way Josh Hamilton recounts both parts of his life in his new book Beyond Belief, made me want to reach out to the child in the early years and shake the adult in the later years. The story of Hamilton and what he went through to get back into baseball, is discussed in sports circles like the man is a myth. Hamilton’s autobiography is told with a passion and brutal honesty that is rarely seen in pro athletes today.

The book grabbed me from the opening page as Hamilton recalled his childhood in Raleigh, N.C. — living in the country, playing baseball every day, growing up with sports being what you did rather than what you wanted to do. The book even made me laugh as Hamilton told of chasing foul balls at baseball games to get a free hotdog from the concession stand. While Hamilton grew up in North Carolina, and I grew up in Trenton, Texas, our stories could have been told by the same person and been pretty accurate in both cases.

From the time Hamilton was six years old, he was always a step above his peers. He could throw harder, hit farther and make plays in the field that made the Tar Heel Little League move him up a level. He didn’t know it at the time, but he would be the first player they ever bestowed with such an honour. Hamilton’s childhood was filled with fond memories of playing the game he loved and spending time with the ones he loved — his family.

In the opening chapter, Hamilton tells a story about pitching to a kid in the Tar Heel League. During the first at bat, he threw behind the kid on accident. The next time up the opposing boy was mortified and cried outside the batter’s box until a coach convinced him that Hamilton wouldn’t hit him. What do you think happened? Hamilton dotted him right between the shoulder blades. The kid dropped, screaming “He hit me! He hit me!” and “I can’t move!” Years later Hamilton’s dad met the kid on a job site, and the now grown man, said “Tell your son I never played past little league after he hit me. That boy scared me to death.”

Hamilton even recounts an episode on the field when he was in Class-A ball in the Tampa Bay organization when he saw the face of a demon in the clouds during a game and after the game saw the image of Jesus Christ on a television in his hotel room. Some may think Hambone (the nickname his grandmother gave him) is crazy, but I tend to side with him in believing that there was a connection between the two events and a message was being prophesied to him. He didn’t know it at the time, but a tough road was ahead for the bright eyed 18-year-old that had his parents traveling with him full time.

Hamilton and his family were involved in an automobile accident with a dump truck that left his father with a fractured skull, his mother with whiplash and Hamilton with a back pain that could not be explained. The team ran him through every test imaginable and it wasn’t until a season later and a trip to a back specialist that the source of the pain was discovered. While a small pocket of fluid caused the pain in his back, the pain in his soul could be attributed to his family not being near him, loneliness that manifested itself in regular trips to a tattoo shop where he would sit for an entire day and get two or three tattoos per day, leaving a permanent reminder of the pain.

It was at that very shop where Hamilton met the individuals that would lead him to try cocaine for the first time. He later said “they weren’t bad people, they just did bad things.” Sometimes we know what we are doing is wrong, but our desire to drown our pain or fit in with others is so great that we ignore the red flags thrown in our faces. Twenty-plus tattoos covered his body and with cocaine coursing through his veins, Hamilton’s once bright aspirations of playing pro ball were quickly fading.

Something had to happen or this person, with God-given talent, would be lost to the world forever. That saviour would come in the form of a woman in her seventies who was barely five feet tall. Hamilton went to his grandmother’s house — the one place he always knew he could go when he felt he needed to escape — at a time when he had nowhere else to turn. His family was leery of helping him because of all he had put them through up to this point, but his grandmother would never turn him away, or so he hoped. At her house, after using drugs in her house and seeing the hurt in her eyes, Hamilton reached out to Jesus and asked him to do with his life what he wanted. From that day on Hamilton was drug free.

Hamilton went on to get selected by the Cubs in the Rule 5 draft and sold to the Reds that same day; he made the Cincy big league roster out of Spring Training, and enjoyed rookie season. In the offseason, he was dealt to Texas, and this year enjoyed an even finer campaign, highlighted by his incredible show at the Home Run derby, when he smacked a record of 28 long balls in the first round.

Hamilton’s career is still young and the future is bright. What could have been has been replaced with what is now and the Rays have to be wishing they never left him unprotected in the Rule 5 draft.

Whether it is a sad story with a happy ending, a story of what not to do in life, or just a story of how life can deal you many obstacles and it is up to you to work around them, the tale of Josh Hamilton is a story that could make a grown man cry. What he had to overcome in order to claim his rightful spot on a major league roster is miraculous. Hamilton’s story is one of an individual trying to rein in something that was out of control. It wasn’t until he turned his life over to God that all things became possible.

Check out the Fantasy Forecast, which is updated every Monday morning.