In 2006 Cramer sold both his publisher and his subject on a book about Alex Rodriguez, the star of the New York Yankees who was recently banned for a year by Major League Baseball for taking banned substances. The book had the title, The Importance of Being Alex: A Life with the Yankees. He had a $550,000 advance from the Hachette Book Group. Rodriguez had agreed to cooperate fully. In fact, he welcomed Cramer into his entourage. What happened after that is a sad tale but, unfortunately, not unique.
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Tags: A-Rod, Alex Rodriguez, baseball, books, Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, Edmund Morris, Hachette Book Group, journalists, magazines, New York Yankees, performance enhancing drugs, Richard Ben Cramer, Ronald Reagan, S.L. Price, Sports Illustrated, writers