Alex Rodriguez was Major League Baseball’s public enemy No. 1 just five years ago for his use of performance-enhancing drugs and his efforts to thwart investigations into that use.
Now A-Rod is a Yankees adviser and an analyst on not one but two of MLB’s biggest national TV platforms in ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” and Fox’s pregame and postgame playoff and World Series coverage — all with the tacit approval of the man who led the sport’s investigation, Rob Manfred.
If that fall-and-rise seems like something straight out of a pro wrestling script, that’s because it is.
Think of Rodriguez as the heel recast as hero, and Manfred, now MLB’s commissioner, in the role of World Wrestling Entertainment impresario/ringmaster Vince McMahon.
It’s crazy but true, and the even crazier true story of the Miami-area PED peddling and investigation at its root is recounted in filmmaker Billy Corben’s “Screwball,” an entertaining documentary just released in 12 cities — including Chicago, at Facets Cinematheque — and available April 5 everywhere on demand.
“Major League Baseball is becoming what everything in America is becoming, particularly our politics,” Corben said. “It has turned into the WWE. It’s all about competition, winning and storylines that will increase the bottom line.”
“Screwball” tells the absurd story of a gang that couldn’t shoot up straight.
It’s told primarily by Tony Bosch, the pseudo-doctor at its center, and Porter Fischer, a so-called professional tanner who inadvertently got in too deep, inadvertently exposed the scandal and inadvertently kept justice from being served.
There are payoffs, double-crosses, an array of illegal activities and more per-capita stupidity than you would think possible even if you’re someone who Googles “Florida man” headlines for fun.
No one comes off looking good.
No one comes off even looking all that competent.
Corben (“Cocaine Cowboys,” “The U”) tugs on the comic thread running through the rise and unraveling of Bosch’s Biogenesis clinic, which supplied Rodriguez and many other baseball players with PEDs, then ties up the loose ends to bundle what otherwise might seem a complex tale in a neat package.
The result is something akin to a mash-up of the Coen Brothers, Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard by way of “Drunk History.”
As a grace note, seeing as how the people in and around this scandal from top to bottom are behaving like children, Corben uses kids to stage his reenactments, which is as amusing as it sounds.
While Bosch and Fischer recount conversations, the youngsters lip-sync the dialogue because, hey, why not?
The perverse message of “Screwball” is you can lie, cheat, steal and buy your way to success in America if you play your cards right.
And if you play them wrong and get caught, just ride out the storm. You don’t need people to forgive so much as forget.
Rodriguez, now engaged to movie, music and TV star Jennifer Lopez, didn’t even have to go on a mea culpa media tour.
“(A-Rod) is a remarkable case study for PR classes to examine for many decades to come as a resurrection we haven’t seen since Jesus Christ, but it doesn’t surprise me,” Corben said.
“The older I get, the truer it has seemed to become, that L.A. is where you go when you want to be somebody, New York is where you go when you are somebody and Miami is where you go when you want to be somebody else. It’s always been a sunny place for shady people.”
Corben, busy in the run-up to the film’s release, recently appeared with Bosch (aka “Dr. Tony” to those who paid for his pick-me-up drug regimens) at a question-and-answer event.
“He said, ‘Bill, you look tired,’” Corben recalled. “He said, ‘You should go see my dad, Dr. Pedro.’ His dad is actually a real doctor, which is a nice change of pace for that family.”
But in the world of “Screwball,” as A-Rod has shown, no one settles for being what they are if they can avoid it.
philrosenthal@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @phil_rosenthal
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