New York Magazine’s Steve Fishman recently dove headfirst into Alex Rodriguez’ legal & public relations battles and has followed a lengthy article from earlier this month with excerpts from “a trove of the electronic correspondence between Rodriguez and (Yankees president Randy) Levine.”  By the February of 2013, what had previously been a somewhat chummy rapport between the superstar and the executive (pep talks!  steroid gags!) had turned downright frosty ;

Rodriguez: Randy, […] As you can imagine, I’m feeling left out, I can’t be with the team at spring training and this leaves an empty hole in my life. And on top of that I’m dealing with the backlash of all these ugly rumors and false stories. […] Of course I am very concerned about these rumors and about what the team is doing and saying about me. … People have been telling me that you have an 8% bounty on my contract.[…] Maybe all of this is coming from my cousin […], who knows. He claims he met with the Yankees and that you are after me and it has me concerned. I hope this [e-mail] is the start of us clearing the air between us. I don’t want us to be enemies. I am loyal to the team. I only want the best for the Yankees organization. But I do need reassurance from you and I need to know what is going on. It is bad business for everyone.

Levine: First off, neither I nor anyone at Yankees every met with your cousin. This is being handled by MLB and we r allowing them to do their job. There is no bounty on you. We have no idea who MLB is meeting with or what course their investigation is taking. It is entirely in their hands. We r not talking to the media on this issue, we have said this is being handled by MLB, and we will have no comment until the investigation is over. That’s it. There is nothing else going on. I wish u health and a good rehab.