A-Rod seen as insecure, needing to please: Author

NEW YORK: Journalist Selena Roberts makes the case that Alex Rodriguez likely used steroids in high school and may have taken human growth hormone while with the Yankees in her new biography of the Most Valuable Player, a portrait of a deeply insecure man trying to cope with being abandoned by his father and obsessed with becoming a superstar.

The release of "A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez" has been moved up to Monday because details of Rodriguez' possible drug use as a teenager and as a Yankee leaked out over the past week. Rodriguez has refused comment, and Yankees manager Joe Girardi questioned Sunday why the book was even written.

In the book, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, Roberts traces much of the slugger's behavior to his father's decision to separate from the family when Alex was 10.