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(10-30) 19:46 PDT --
Mix a weak-minded narcist with a conniving, slime-covered agent and you acquire Lord'S Day nighttime at the World Series: a shameful spot of upstaging that not only exposed the true colours of Alex Rodriguez and George C. Scott Boras, but actually damaged their cause.
There wasn't a individual in baseball game who wasn't fed up by Boras' determination to direct e-mails, to certain reporters, announcing A-Rod's purpose to choose out of his contract with the Yankees. The news spreading fast, all the manner to Fox's Cognizance Rosenthal, who informed a national television audience during the 8th frame of Boston's title-clinching victory.
The news was titillating, no statement there. Given the Yankees' adamantly declared determination to immediately cut neckties with A-Rod, the treatment began in earnest: Who's going to subscribe this guy? He's the logical inheritor to Barry Bonds' place tally record and his 54-homer, 156-RBI season stirred Northerner memories of Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Mantle. Sounds like a hot-stove subject for the ages.
Except it wasn't about baseball game at all. In placing themselves above the game, and a twenty-four hours that should have got belonged strictly to the Red Sox, Rodriguez and Boras had everyone wondering why the Hell any squad would pass $30 million a twelvemonth on a phony, a Prima donna and a adult male likely to put his ain inherent aptitudes behind Boras' desire to happen the most money. (Great remark from an incensed Simon Peter Gammons on ESPN: "He's never played in a World Series. Maybe there's a reason.")
People blamed A-Rod for the shameless timing; after all, he could have got told Boras to endorse off. The job is, Rodriguez doesn't have got a head of his ain - not when it really counts. He allow Boras talking him into sign language with the Lone-Star State Rangers, and a life in baseball's cellar, because proprietor Uncle Tom Hicks was insane adequate to pitchfork out $252 million. As talented as he is - without question, he's among the top five or six most talented jocks ever to play the game - Rodriguez doesn't trust himself when the visible lights reflect brightest. He acquires all sensitive and introspective, filled with self-doubt.
That mightiness sound harsh, but there's no other manner to explicate A-Rod's postseason performances. You probably cognize about his 4-for-47 slack and his run of 15 games without an RBI, but this is the most revealing stat: Since Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS - the nighttime Hub Of The Universe began its epic poem rejoinder from three games down against the Yankees - Rodriguez have come up to the plate with 38 smugglers on base, over the span of 59 at-bats. He left every single 1 on base, going 0-for-27, right through the Yanks' Division Series loss to Cleveland this month.
Yo, Boras: Put that in your thousand-page booklet explaining A-Rod's value to a team. That's some damning, overpowering evidence. Even Bonds, before his world-domination circuit for the 2002 Giants, had a few minutes in an otherwise black postseason resume.
The Yankees have got made it abundantly clear that they're done with Rodriguez, so we'll take them at their word. Boras doesn't run without a parachute, so we can presume he's lined up at least one franchise willing to pay A-Rod money. It's hard to conceive of which one, though. The candidates:
Giants: A figure of beginnings topographic point Simon Peter Magowan and Larry Baer right at the top of the list. Frightening, isn't it? Not that A-Rod wouldn't be a fantastic regular-season show, or a manner to prolong the type of attending required to do those stadium-debt payments. He's everything Magowan and Baer ever wanted, in their marketing-obsessed philosophy, and they apparently have got the means.
Still, the Giants have got got been buffaloed once by Boras - just last year, with the obscene Barry Zito contract - and they have to give at least some idea to winning. A-Rod makes nil to acquire the Giants out of last place, largely because in that bad lineup, he could interrupt Bonds' records for deliberate walks. The Giants demand respective players, not merely one. They necessitate to reconstruct a logical wage construction and do certain they have got enough money to maintain Tim Lincecum, Flatness Cain and other hereafter prospects (if they exist) in a Giants uniform. More than anything, why would A-Rod mark with a second-rate club in a pitchers' ballpark?
Angels: It do a batch of sense from a baseball game standpoint. The Angels demand a powerfulness hitter, the third-base job is broad open, A-Rod would do them a lock to win the aluminum Occident (perhaps for respective old age running), and he could go on agonizing the American League hurlers he cognizes so well. Boras is based in Newport Beach, and there was an uncorroborated study this hebdomad that Rodriguez have purchased a place in Orange County.
The whole idea, though, travels against the doctrine of proprietor Arte Moreno. He's not wild about paying person twice as much as the epic Vladimir Guerrero. Moreno doesn't desire to upset Commissioner Bud Selig, ferocious over the prospect of Boras once again destroying the game's wage construction (and, as a result, raising ticket terms for the paying customers). Moreno should take a speedy opinion poll of director Microphone Scioscia and his players. If they're game, A-Rod is deserving the gamble.
Dodgers: In a bowl full of short-order cooks who claim to be screenwriters, the not-quite-real Rodriguez would be perfect in L.A. The Dodgers could utilize a hammer in their promotion competitions with the Angels. But it's hard to conceive of cost-conscious owner Frank McCourt wall hanging out too long in the bidding, and if Joe Torre goes the manager, as rumored, he'd just as soon iron out out a serious clubhouse rift without A-Rod's presence. As the Yankees' manager, Torre knew enough of Rodriguez to chiropteran him 8th (against Detroit) in a postseason game.
Mets: They were a aggregation of A-Rods down feather the stretch this year, choking their manner right out of the playoffs. Surely, he's a alluring presence, and direction have the finances, but the Mets demand an extract of young person and character, not a possible headache. It also would be brainsick to travel either Saint David Willard Huntington Wright or Jose Reyes - bases of the franchise - off the left side of the infield.
White Sox: Cipher musca volitans a bogus more than than quickly, or with more venom, than director Ozzie Guillen. General director Kenny William Carlos Williams also went on record as saying the White Person Sox can't afford A-Rod.
Cubs: Picture this: Mark Cuban lives out a dreaming by buying the Cubs - a desire he made quite public in recent months. He draws the gun trigger on A-Rod, World Health Organization plays shortstop for his favourite manager, Lou Piniella, with pillar Aramis Ramirez retention down third. It's a nice fantasy, but it won't happen. The Cubs are for sale, new ownership might not be in topographic point until spring, and as a friend and intimate of White Person Sox proprietor Kraut Reinsdorf, Selig doesn't desire some ace billionaire running the crosstown Cubs. Pathetic, but true.
Tigers: They have got dealt with controversial Boras clients before - Pudge Rodriguez, Magglio Ordoñez, Kenny Will Rogers - and made it work. On the field, director Jim Leyland can do just about anything work. With Edgar Renteria pickings the shortstop job, A-Rod would replace Brandon William Ralph Inge at third. Sounds feasible, but A-Rod might be turned off by broad Comerica Park - and the Tigers aren't wild about such as a drastic turbulence in their wage structure.
Red Sox: They wanted him badly in December 2003, when the players' labor union rejected an agreed-upon deal with the Rangers, but they don't necessitate him now. They necessitate to re-sign 3rd baseman Microphone Lowell, most valuable player of the World Series and a possible free agent, and lodge with a roll that expressions to be a human dynamo for old age to come. The Hub Of The Universe fans don't desire A-Rod, nor make many of the players, who have got fought, feuded with or criticized him in the past.
Look at it this way: The season after their A-Rod trade drop through, the Red Sox won it all. Now they have got two statute titles in four years. The message couldn't be more than clear.
E-mail David Bruce Jenkins at .
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