Wherever Alex Rodriguez plays baseball these days, he can be a walking, talking distraction. After Rodriguez acknowledged last month that he used steroids, he has been discussed and dissected more than any other major league player. That scrutiny will surely remain as close to Rodriguez as the pinstripes on his Yankees uniform.

Beginning Monday, that attention should intensify internationally as Rodriguez starts practicing with the Dominican Republic for the World Baseball Classic. Rodriguez’s talent and his decision to shift from the United States team to the Dominican team has assured him of being one of the more compelling players in the event. Now Rodriguez’s link to steroids has heightened that interest.

“Alex is the best player in baseball,” said Stan Javier, the Dominican Republic’s general manager. “When we found out he was playing for us, I was very happy for him and very happy for us.”

For three months, Javier and Manager Felipe Alou worked to assemble the most potent team possible. Javier lamented how Albert Pujols, Alfonso Soriano and Vladimir Guerrero were not playing for the Dominican Republic. But the team had Rodriguez drop into its dugout when he said that his mother wanted him to play for her native country.

As the Yankees know and as the Dominican Republic will learn, having Rodriguez on the squad means more than having one more star. Rodriguez will be surrounded by superb players like Hanley Ramírez, José Reyes and David Ortiz, and is on a team that is one of the favorites to win the tournament, but the focus will often tilt to the third baseman. That happens often with Rodriguez.

“We have to see and wait how Alex does,” Javier said. “I hope that he can be in a very relaxed environment. Like the slogan says, ‘Talk baseball.’ That’s what we’re trying to do. I hope it’s a nice environment for him and the other teams to play in.”

If there is one man in a Dominican uniform who is guaranteed to be calm, it is Alou. He is a thoughtful gentleman and a perfect manager to handle any players who may face some thorny questions or be verbally bashed. The Dominicans will play their opener against the Netherlands on Saturday in San Juan, P.R. Puerto Rico, which should relish a decided home-field advantage, and Panama are also in the same bracket in the 16-team tournament.

One of Alou’s trickiest decisions will be how to best employ Ramírez and Reyes, two of the premier shortstops in the major leagues. He must also determine how much he can squeeze out of Pedro Martínez, who struggled with the Mets last year and is still a free agent. Edinson Vólquez, a 17-game winner for the Cincinnati Reds, fronts the rotation, and José Arredondo is a threat out of the bullpen.

With the Dominican team garnering negative attention for some off-the-field issues, Javier admitted to being dismayed. Besides Rodriguez’s admission, Miguel Tejada has had an active year, too. Tejada, who quit the team on Thursday and rejoined it a day later, has pleaded guilty to charges of lying to Congressional investigators who were looking into whether Rafael Palmeiro had lied about using steroids. The Dominicans have also been forbidden from using Angel Presinal, a controversial personal trainer who worked with them in the inaugural W.B.C. in 2006.

Javier said Presinal had trained the majority of the Dominican players, including Rodriguez, Ortiz and Robinson Canó. Canó said Presinal “is great about conditioning guys.” But Presinal has been connected to performance-enhancing drugs since an incident in 2001 involving a bag containing drugs that was confiscated by the Canadian border authorities. He has been banished from major league clubhouses since 2002.

“We just have to go by the rules,” Javier said. “If M.L.B. doesn’t want it, that’s fine with us. We’ll do whatever they tell us to do. It’s too bad that the other things have happened, but we have to move on.”

Regardless of what happens with the Dominican team, Alou will probably handle it in his usually soothing fashion. When Barry Bonds was swatting homers for the San Francisco Giants and was suspected of steroid use, he was unapproachable and surly. Alou, who managed Bonds for four years, was the opposite. He answered questions about Bonds every day. Some were tough and some were tedious, but Alou’s placid temperament rarely changed.

After smoothly dealing with the Bonds situation for so long, Alou will have three weeks, at the most, with the Dominican team that will be the equivalent of managerial batting practice. Javier said he and Alou tried to build a team with pitching depth and a lot of speed, traits that are important in a tournament where there is an urgency to prevail in every game.

The Dominicans lost to the Cubans in the 2006 semifinals, a game that Javier said they were “very confident” they were going to win.

Now Javier said the Dominicans must respect every team, but fear no team in their quest to win it all and call themselves the best in the world.

“It’s been a tough road for us,” Javier said. “At the end, we look pretty good. We have the guys that want to play. I feel pretty good.”