(a despised public figure.  On the right, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg)

Incredibly, the Daily Bacon isn’t the only sporting entry to reference Edward James Olmos today. The Sacramento Bee’s Paul Guiterrez has the singular pleasure of chatting with the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez.

Q: A main criticism from both mainstream America and the Latino culture is that you are seen as a sell-out, that your public persona is so polished that you’re not real.

A: Well, if you have two DUIs and a domestic-violence abuse (arrest) or something, they call you ‘Real’ or whatever. Anyway, to me I take the advice my grandma (Leonel Navarro) once gave me. She said, ‘Take the high road because there’s no traffic up there.’ And the truth of the matter is, when it’s all said and done, you treat people the way you want to be treated.

And the thing is, if you really want to know who someone is, you’ve got to go around and ask teammates, coaches. You’ve got to go around and ask former teammates because they’ll tell you the truth because you’re not there anymore; they don’t have to be political. You can go to Texas; you can go to Seattle; you can go to my high school coach; go to my seventh-grade teacher. That’s how you know who somebody is. For me to sit here and say, ‘Oh, I’m this and I’m that?’ That doesn’t mean (expletive). You’ve got to go back and check. I can go back to your college or the L.A. Times or Sports Illustrated. I know I can find out some things about you and they’re going to be most real, that maybe you won’t tell me. Good or bad.