New York — Journalist Selena Roberts makes the case that Alex Rodriguez likely used steroids in high school and may have taken HGH while with the Yankees in her new biography of the MVP, 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 today 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, Roberts traces much of the slugger’s behavior to his father’s decision to separate from the family when Alex was 10.

“I think like any child, you never want to be abandoned again. In order to sort of keep people near him, people close, please people, I think he always felt that he had to be better than good,” Roberts said in a telephone interview Sunday.

For her, a key insight into A-Rod’s character comes with what some might call a fib: He tells people he hit with wood bats in high school because that’s what the pros use, even though she found photo evidence he used metal.

The pattern of embellishment and outright deceit continues through his admitted used of steroids in the major leagues, Roberts contends.

Following Roberts’ article on SI.com in February that said Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003 as part of baseball’s anonymous survey, Rodriguez admitted using drugs from 2001-03 while with Texas. Roberts concludes he likely used steroids while in high school, before Seattle selected him with the top pick in the 1993 amateur draft.

“I’ve talked to players who say he was using in high school, but if you want to discard that, you look at the physical evidence,” she told the AP.

“You look at a player who by his own coach’s account was unrecognizable his junior year because his body had changed so much. Scouts didn’t recognize him. In his sophomore year, he could barely bench press 100 pounds. By his junior year, he was bench pressing 300 pounds.”