Even when Alex Rodriguez was winning MVPs and it looked like he’d be the first “clean” cat to break Hank Aaron’s homerun record, he was about his bread.
He’s the only player in MLB history to floss two $200 million contracts in one career. Now that his career has crashed and burned amongst more allegations of illegal performance enhancers, injuries and playoff incompetence, it seems that people — including the Yankees — expect him to say, “O.K. I suck now and I’m a cheater, so keep the $114 million you owe me and let’s call it even.”
Yeah right.
The A-Rod/Yankees feud isn’t even about baseball anymore. GM Brian Cashman’s unprofessional and classless response to Rodriguez’ tweet declaring that he was ready to play, proved that. The discussions shouldn’t be about how A- Rod can help an offensively-stumped Yankees team, because there’s no relationship there anymore.
The two sides are locked in a game of chicken, with each looking to protect their own interests.
For A-Rod, at this point, with his baseball future looking cloudier than a Sunday in Seattle, it’s all about getting out of NY with a bundle of gold under his arm.
According to sources, Rodriguez and his advisors are so concerned that Major League Baseball’s drug enforcement team is quickly closing in on him, that they have actually sped up his timetable for recovery in order to protect that gwop he has coming.
Once A-Rod is back playing rehab games, he could then claim he is physically unable to perform because of the hip injury he is recovering from, “retire” from the game, and still collect the full amount of his salary — $114 million over the next five years.
This is what A-Rod’s career with the Yankees has come to, posturing over dough. That World Series win in ‘09 seems like decades ago, and Cashman, who never wanted to give A-Rod that extension in the first place, wishes he and his albatross contract and constant media circus, could just crawl under a rock and disappear.
It also seems like the Yankees would rather wait and see if A-Rod gets in trouble by MLB, so they could possibly avoid, or legitimately dispute, paying him.
However, showing obvious, public disdain for A-Rod won’t make the Yankees third baseman play nice. He’s going to play hard ball as he always does concerning his paper.
Now that he probably won’t ever make the HOF, being rich is all A-Rod has left. His rep is tarnished. He’s a shell of the player he was and his career is coming to a tragic end.
The Yankees need to stop trying to flip the script to present this guy as the villain, though. They gave him that contract because they greedily thought he would break the career homerun record in a Yankees uniform. His greed led to his baseball demise and the Yanks greed has landed them in this jacked position. This was a match made in baseball hell from the beginning.
