A-Rod’s finest moment: leading the Yankees to #27.
Yesterday’s A-Rod presser was must-see TV, although it was a little weird to see Yankees PR guy Jason Zillo announce to the room the big news — that A-Rod’s last game would be Friday, and that he would be a special advisor until December 2017 — before Alex was talking. And it was all very artfully worded to cover up what really happened. Alex never said the word “retire,” and he made it clear he didn’t exactly have any choice in being designated for assignment.
I did cry a few times watching A-Rod talk: I got a little teary-eyed when he said about how he was just happy to make the big leagues at 18, and I sobbed when he broke down and said “Thank you for your support.” I also appreciated when he said he wanted to be remembered as somebody who fell down a lot, but kept on getting up.
It took Brian Cashman to explain that yes, the Yankees were going to be paying A-Rod every penny they owe him. This also means that my friend Jason was right that Alex’s playing days were over.
Also, for once, I wasn’t totally annoyed with Cashman when he spoke. When he took off his 2009 World Series ring, put it on the table, and said he wouldn’t have that ring without Alex, that was a pretty powerful moment.
Hal Steinbrenner apparently was finally convinced that it was time to cut ties with A-Rod — at least on the field. But it says a lot about how A-Rod rehabilitated his image that the Yankees are going to keep him with the organization and have them work with their youth. I also think it’s amusing that he’s going to be working with shortstops in the farm system. Not third basemen. Shortstops. Hmmm. Don’t the Yankees already have a legendary shortstop in the fold for that?
And I do think it’s funny how MLB has such mixed messages when it comes to PED use. Think about it: Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Manny Ramirez, and A-Rod have the proverbial scarlet letter of being PED users. None of them will be in the Hall of Fame any times soon because of this. Yet they all have positions in the game where they work with the next generation of players. You would think that if they were so awful, baseball would never want them influencing players. Go figure.
Although Friday night will be the big farewell, I won’t be there. I had to run 16 (!) miles yesterday for my training for the New York City Marathon, running from my home to the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and back. This meant I was out running until after the A-Rod presser. Fortunately, I taped the event, avoided checking any news on it, and watched it as it happened, albeit in a very exhausted state! (Hey, I’ve never run 16 miles before!)
Because I was watching the presser after it happened, it was already too late to buy tickets for Friday, his last game. But I have a 5K in Asbury Park the next day, and my running coach is picking me up at 6 a.m. for it, so I don’t think he’d want me to be getting home at 2 a.m. from the Bronx anyway. (He’s also a Mets fan, so he wouldn’t understand!)
Anyhow, I will have more to say about Alex as this week unfolds. But I did find it fascinating to see how many current and past teammates gave specifics when talking about A-Rod helping them,a nd called him the greatest player they ever played with. It wasn’t the generic praise Jeter got in his last year. It was very detailed, like when Ivan Nova said how A-Rod told him what to throw to David Ortiz.
Turns out that Rodriguez actually was a really great teammate, something we only heard the media say in the last year and a half, after Jeter’s retirement. Did Alex only become a good teammate for 18 months? Of course not. But most of the New York writers didn’t seem to want to say that when Jeter was on the team.
Speaking of Jeter, I think it was tacky, but typical, for him to issue a boring, ghostwritten press release on behalf of Ichiro’s 3000th hit (as boring as The Players’ Tribune’s ghostwritten stories are), but to ignore the A-Rod retirement news.
Ken Davidoff of the New York Post had an excellent column on A-Rod’s legacy today which is pretty much what I think. “A-Rod forever clouded the notion of whom fans should and shouldn’t support,” Davidoff wrote. “For that, we should be grateful.” I agree. The writer noticed how “entertaining” Rodriguez was, and said this:
“All of A-Rod’s most glaring transgressions resulted from him wanting badly to win. Games. Most Valuable Player awards. Approval. In the game of life, these go down as misdemeanors. Especially since, in the game A-Rod played to make him rich and famous, too many instances exist of people not doing all they can to win: Associating with gamblers. Not signing players of color. Colluding with fellow owners to keep salaries down. Refusing to move from shortstop even though your team has just acquired a superior shortstop for whom you happen to hold contempt.”
Oh, snap! And people think I’m harsh on Captain Intangibles!
