Selena Roberts interview

In this SI interview, Selena Roberts goes into more detail about A-Rod tipping pitches to opposing batters in blow-outs.

SI.com: How would he tip the pitches?

Roberts: If it was a changeup, sources say, he would twist his glove hand. To indicate a slider, he would allegedly sweep the dirt in front of him, and he would bend in the direction of where the pitch was going to be, inside or outside. I don't know that it's easy to decode. You're talking about people who see a player on an every-day basis, day after day, year after year. I don't know that it would be at all obvious to people who are watching or to a television audience. These are people who would know how to detect when things don't feel right. If it happened once or twice, people might say, Let's give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe we didn't see what we thought we saw. But according to the people that I spoke with, this was a pattern of behavior.

SI.com: So if teammates noticed it, how did they handle it?

Roberts: At least one teammate in a very gentle way did say, "Hey, you might be tipping a little too soon out there." What would usually happen would be for Alex to signal the pitch to his teammates as the pitcher was in the windup; that way the batter is focused on the pitcher and not able to see the sign. However, these signs Alex would flash came before the windup and that made it more noticeable. This is the critical difference between signaling your infield as quarterback and giving away the pitch to the hitter: when you flash the sign. This was done to give the batter plenty of time to see it and figure out what to do about it.

But one player trying to be diplomatic told me that he said, "I think you're tipping a little too soon," and the response from Alex was, "What are you talking about?" I don't think Alex was irritated at the player; I think he felt that he had been scrutinized too closely, that someone else was trying to tell him how to do his job. These people who knew about it or witnessed it knew how it would play in the clubhouse if it became an issue. These were all reasons why it didn't become a bigger deal than it was, because people wanted to keep it under wraps.