Bombers Bites: Alex Rodriguez In A Lose-Lose Situation
By Ricky Keeler
For this week’s edition of Bombers Bites, I wanted to reflect back on another crazy week that was for the New York Yankees in the off-season drama known as “As The A-Rod Speaks.” While Alex Rodriguez isn’t expected to be at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa till next Wednesday, this week brought its fair share of surprises.
For one, Rodriguez chose to forego holding a press conference at Yankee Stadium, which the team had given him permission to do. Instead, Rodriguez chose to write a handwritten apology to the fans, coaches, front office, players, and the MLB and its Players Union for all the events surrounding the past year. Then, on Wednesday, JR Moehringer wrote an excellent piece in ESPN The Magazine about what the former Yankees’ third baseman has done while serving his suspension for his involvement in BioGenesis.
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I have been on the record on the Yanks Go Yard Radio Show saying that I thought New York should cut Rodriguez, eat the $61 million that is owed for the next three years, and give this team a chance to create their own chemistry, sans A-Rod, in 2015. That being said, this week has been different for me.
First off, I thought the handwritten apology was a smart idea by the Rodriguez camp. It allowed him to express his thoughts while not having to face questions that might be difficult for him to answer from the local and national media.There is one thing that Rodriguez 100% got right in that letter and that is the fact that it is going to be hard to convince people that he is sincere, regardless of how he went about his method of trying to find forgiveness:
"“I accept the fact that many of you will not believe my apology or anything that I say at this point. I understand why and that’s on me.”"
Think about what has happened for past Yankees this week. Andy Pettitte, who was named in the Mitchell Report for using HGH, will be getting his number retired in late August by the Yankees (along with Bernie Williams and Jorge Posada). Plus, Jason Giambi, who did have some involvement in BALCO, retired without the PED use being at the forefront of his solid career.
As Joel Sherman of the New York Post pointed out in a column he wrote on Thursday, guys like Pettitte, Jason Giambi, Mark McGwire, and even Manny Ramirez, have found their way back into baseball in some way, shape, or form because they were able to turn their life around into a positive after PED admissions or once their drug use was discovered.
Can this case still be the same for Rodriguez? Of course. That being said, I like the approach the team and Joe Girardi are taking with him, which is to ease him into game action and maybe use him as a platoon designated hitter to go with one of the Yankees acquisitions this winter, Garrett Jones.
The problem for Rodriguez is that all of the events that have happened since the PED news came out about him in 2009 has caused people to firmly stand for him or against him. There isn’t usually much wiggle room. One of the problems I think is Rodriguez tries too hard to get people to like him, which can cause people to hate him more in the process.
I’m not asking Rodriguez to turn into the WWE villain. The only way that he can try to avoid a lose-lose situation is to be a good teammate, keep the off-field drama to a bare minimum, and try to help New York win in 2015. He doesn’t need to have an AL MVP season like he did in 2007, he just needs to be a complementary piece on a winning team.
As we saw in 2009, winning can heal all wounds and Alex Rodriguez’s clutch performance that October caused him to win some fans back. While his apology may have brought some fans closer to his side, only a deep run in October could keep this from being a lose-lose situation for A-Rod, who will be 40 in the month of July.
Next: Yanks Go Yard Radio Rewind: Spring Training Edition
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