Steve Fishman of New York Magazine wrote an epic detailing of the Alex Rodriguez-MLB battle back on December 1. Now, as a spillover from that article, come a series of emails between A-Rod and Yankees president Randy Levine sent from 2011 through the depths of the Biogenesis scandal in August of this year. And they’re, well, weird.

Weird in that they work against each man’s public persona. Levine — a hard-nosed and intelligent businessman — is often playing the kindly father figure to A-Rod. Meanwhile, Rodiriguez is seriously going to lose points in his competition to become History’s Greatest Monster when everyone sees how often his emails employ the empty jockspeak — “we’ll win tomorrow!” — that is supposedly what head-on-straight athletes are supposed to use.

But overall the emails show a simultaneous warmth and banality between Levine and Rodriguez that seems … off somehow. Like Levine is sort of pandering to a delicate diva in Rodriguez but isn’t too terribly good at it. Which may very well be the true nature of their 2011-12 relationship but it also speaks of a relationship that didn’t have much trust or familiarity to begin with. And then there are some odd asides — Levine makes two steroids jokes! — that now seem way more significant than they might have at the time. It only gets real and testy toward the end once everyone lawyered up.

I suppose anyone’s email correspondence with their bosses might seem weird to outsiders. These are certainly no exception.