As a die-hard New York Yankees fan, I am ready to see Alex
Rodriguez get his walking papers for another town. As an expensive commodity, have
we really gotten our money’s worth?
A-Rod will give you
solid puffed up regular season numbers. If you add up his career numbers, you
see why he is deemed one of the most talented players of all time. He will get you
.300 for a batting average. Mix in his 40+ homers. He was also pretty quick as
a base runner. But, there was always something missing.
If you want to be a
Yankee legend, it takes much more. You need to be the heartbeat of the team.
Your teammates know you have left everything on the field when everything is
said and done. They look at you as their Colonel leading them to battle on the
baseball diamond. Recently, Derek Jeter has gone down with a fractured ankle. He
has played months with various ailments knowing that if his teammates know he
is in the lineup they will feel they have a fighting chance to win every time.
Imagine the Yankee ship losing its sail when Captain Lou Gehrig missed his
first game in over 2,000 outings and his eventual retirement because his ailment
had taken his ability to perform. Can A-Rod say he has the same effect on his
teammates? His childish antics do not help either. Rumor has it that when A-Rod
was taken out because of lack of performance, he threw a baseball up to a female
fan and asked her to write down her number for him. I can tell you what his
number is …….. 0. I’m so glad he was trying to figure out what he can do to improve
his game. Maybe he could have tried to
think about how he can help his teammates out in the tightly contested playoff
game.
A-Rod has shown he isn't a leader and doesn't care to be either. Derek Jeter has slumped off and
on over the past few years. His numbers are not as impressive as they were in
his younger years. He learned though, that you can control a game in many
different ways. If the bat wasn’t working, Derek would make an unbelievable
play that would fire up his team and everyone in the crowd. He would somehow hit
that game tying home run to help his team move out of playoff elimination.
Catching an errant pass and tossing it to home plate to get a base runner out
is all in a day’s work for the J Man. Have we ever received anything remotely
like that from him? During the Yankees 2004 colossal 3-0 collapse to eventual
World Champion Red Sox, Rodriguez climbed into his little shell instead of throwing
his team on his back. In the 13 playoff series that A-Rod has played in with
the Yankees, he’s only hit over .300 three times! That is anemic. In 59 Yankee
playoff games Alex has driven in only 33 runs.
So, in the final synopsis, can somebody tell me what we are
getting from Alex Rodriguez that warrant’s us to pay him almost $30 Million
dollars? I’m willing to hear a case in favor of A-Rod if there is one. However
the defense would have more holes in it than Swiss cheese.
