Posted: Wednesday, 26 March 2008 4:56PM
Sweeny Blog: A-nalyzing A-Rod
Sweeny Murti
yankees@wfan.com
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Tampa Bay, FL (WFAN) -- How many times do we need to find out if this latest “distraction” will actually turn out to be one for Alex Rodriguez?
This man is a walking, talking distraction. He held out until the last possible moment after being drafted #1 overall in 1993. He spurned long-term contract offers from the Mariners, took the biggest deal ever from Texas, got himself traded to New York, opted out of that record deal, and then signed a new record deal. At one time or another he’s been booed loudly in every city he’s ever played in. Along the way he feuded with Ken Griffey Jr., Buck Showalter, and Derek Jeter. There are one or two people in Boston that don’t care for him very much either.
However, last I checked, A-Rod is still the first Yankee to win more than one MVP award since Mickey Mantle. He was the youngest to reach 400 home runs and the youngest to reach 500 home runs. It doesn’t appear anything has stopped him from being the best player in the game and what many may call the greatest of all time in just a few years.
 On May 30th last year, the headlines read “Stray-Rod” and the Blue Jays were calling him a bush leaguer for yelling “Ha!” at Howie Clark. In June, A-Rod was the Player of The Month (.402 BA, 9 HR, 34 RBI). His marriage was quite possibly hanging by a thread and his professional integrity was headline news as well…and the guy hit .400 over the next month!!!
And before you start bringing up October, this is not about his playoff performances. That is an entirely different set of circumstances, and no…he hasn’t performed as well in those spots. But this is not the postseason. This is simply about all the issues that surround A-Rod every once in a while and what affect they have on him. The answer is clearly none whatsoever.
It was actually a very quiet spring in the world of A-Rod. And then this happened. But you know what? There will be something else a few weeks from now and again a few months from now. And he’ll still hit one home run after another.
Now about October…well, let’s just save that discussion for another day.
- As for Jose Canseco and his new book...sure, he was right about some of the things in his first book. But does it mean I have to read and believe everything in his second book? I met Ron Howard last week here in Tampa. It doesn’t make me an expert on Happy Days (seeing all 255 episodes at some point in my life probably does, but I digress).
So Jose doesn’t like A-Rod. Should we interrupt this regularly scheduled program with this breaking news? I’m sure he’s not alone. Alex has made some enemies along the way. He rubs some people the wrong way and most of that has to do with his talent and his bank account.
- Watching A-Rod take batting practice is still a whole lot of fun. Wednesday in Clearwater he launched one over the Frenchy’s Tiki Bar in left field. Completely over. Even more impressive was a laser over the left-center field fence that left the yard in about three seconds.
- Joe Girardi shared some thoughts on A-Rod Wednesday morning. First on his immense talent:
“You could sit there and watch Alex all the time and see him do things, you just kinda go ‘Wow!’ That’s the type of player he is…he does a lot of things that most of us just dream about doing.”
On his ability to put together another season like his monster 2007:
“I think he’s capable of doing it again, but, you know, there’s some things that can go a little bit wrong. You could line out ten times more than you did last year and it changes your average, it changes maybe your number of RBIs.”
“You know that he’s gonna put up big numbers for the most part. You just don’t know exactly how big they’re gonna be.”
On drawing attention and being a target:
“He’s always gonna command a lot of attention because of the type of player he is. And everything he does is going to be under a microscope. Is that fair? I don’t know if it’s fair, but it’s reality. I mean, Michael Jordan was the same way.”
- Later, Girardi was asked who was the best player he ever saw. Here’s what he had to say:
“I think there’s three of them that I’ve played against that you could put in a category.
Barry Bonds…I played against him a lot when I was with the Cubs, he was in Pittsburgh. He could beat you in so many ways, whether he was stealing a base, making a great play in left field, hitting a home run, taking a walk, just do a lot of things.
Junior (Ken Griffey Jr.) could beat you in so many ways, offensively and defensively. And Alex.”
Thanks for reading. Send comments and questions to yankees@wfan.com.
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