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Yankees destined for a messy offseason divorce
The emasculation of Alex Rodriguez is nearly complete. He has been degraded, dominated,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], made to feel insignificant. All that remains is to strip the few final threads from his pride.
It's almost possible to feel sorry for him, as if we've been reminded that he is still made from flesh and blood and isn't just a robotic hitting/sex machine worth a quarter of a billion dollars. When the odious Donald Trump starts taunting Rodriguez on Twitter-what a world this is-it's easy to side with A-Rod.
For a brief moment Wednesday afternoon, as the media on a baseball field in Detroit encircled him, there was anger in his voice. His glassy eyes burned. Clearly he wanted to argue his case, maybe divulge certain secrets,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but he restrained.
This was the side of A-Rod that New York Yankees fans had been searching for, someone who'd come out fuming and swinging. From a bar on New York's Upper West side, where die-hard throngs gathered to watch the withering remains of the Yankees' season, actual cheers rose as he grew feisty during this impromptu press conference. (While waiting out the rain delay that would eventually postpone Game 4 of the American League Championship Series,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the talk in the bar segued to the World Series and whether the final snip in A-Rod's emasculation would see him left off the Yankees' roster. Oh, Yankees fans, they can be so obnoxiously adorable.)
Conspiracy theories abound about A-Rod's most recent predicament. In the space of barely a week,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], he thrice had his bat taken away for a pinch hitter and was benched entirely for three playoff games (he pinch-hit and remained in Game 4 of the ALCS). The Yankees insisted that his banishment was strictly for baseball reasons, the brain trust of manager Joe Girardi and general manager Brian Cashman drawing conclusions only from A-Rod's pitiful 0-for-18 with 12 strikeouts against righties this postseason.
Not even A-Rod appears to believe this company line. For one,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the Yankees replaced him at third base with Eric Chavez, a hardly immortal figure who went hitless in 16 postseason at-bats. For another,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], the rumors swirling around the possible trading of A-Rod carry the same undertones from 2009,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], when the Yankees looked into voiding his contract after he confessed to using illegal steroids for a three-year period beginning in 2001.
But what suckers would take him now? The incredible shrinking slugger who has lost his power at age 37 still is owed $114 million over five years, along with $30 million in home run incentives, though that doesn't seem much of a worry any longer. A-Rod's last contract negotiations featured a fierce warring bid between the Yankees and the Yankees, with Hank Steinbrenner brilliantly emerging the winner. Now the Yankees likely will have to eat at least 80 percent on every dollar to get Rodriguez out of their hair.
Cashman has denied two reports suggesting the Yankees had engaged in swap talk with the Miami Marlins, the one place where A-Rod likely would approve a trade (though Rodriguez reiterated after the Game 4 loss that he won't waive his no-trade clause). Rodriguez played high school ball in Florida; his two daughters are being raised there. South Beach is home to all kinds of narcissists, preening and posing. A-Rod would melt right in.
He also wouldn't have to deal with all the breathless gossip that stalks him in New York City. After all the tabloid revelations of A-Rod's dalliances with actresses and muscle girls,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], after all the photo spreads of him sunbathing shirtless in Central Park and gazing at his own reflection, there's been a welcome lull in his off-the-field mischief, as if maybe he had realized he ought to be a role model for his daughters.
Then came the latest shenanigans in which A-Rod was caught flirting with two women perched behind the Yankees dugout Saturday night while his teammates were engaged in an extra-innings battle with the Tigers in Game 1 of the ALCS.
Since before the dawn of Babe Ruth, baseball players have been known to search the stands for pretty young things. The difference here: Rodriguez couldn't be bothered to hide his intentions.
Oblivious to an entire row of photographers positioned next to the dugout, he wrote a note on a baseball asking the women to scribble their phone numbers on the ball and throw it back. And in front of his teammates and Yankees personnel, he summoned a ballboy to deliver that ball.
A-Rod had to know all eyes were glued to his every move-he had been pulled for a pinch hitter-but he clearly didn't care. On Wednesday he called the story, first reported in the New York Post, "laughable,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych]," and said "it's a fair question" to wonder if his subsequent benching was related.
Did someone with the Yankees leak the story to the Post? Plenty of fans witnessed it,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], so probably not. Did the Yankees plant the women-two comely Australians, one a bikini model-knowing that A-Rod could not resist trying to compensate for his public embarrassment? That's another theory being bandied about,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], and though it seems absurd, stranger things have happened in the pinstriped soap opera universe.
During his very odd turn at the podium Wednesday,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], in a session with reporters that sounded more like an end-of-season rundown, Cashman maintained the benching of what once was one of the sport's most feared hitters was "purely baseball related."
"This is all about winning, regardless of the report that is out there that is a non-baseball-related story," he said. "It's not going to affect our decision-making about who is best to put us in the position to win on a daily basis."
But of course A-Rod's actions in the dugout are a baseball story. His brazen pursuit of the girls' digits took place during a playoff game, at the ballpark, in clear defiance of his teammates who were straining to win.
That same night,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Derek Jeter went down, a shattered ankle finishing him for the season. It should have been a siren call for A-Rod to summon his inner superstar and brand the Yankees as his team. Girardi and Cashman could have decided this was the perfect moment to let A-Rod prove he's the leader he's always claimed to be, let him sink or swim in the waters he polluted.
Instead they sat him in Game 3 against Justin Verlander, even though Rodriguez was 4-for-6 with two home runs against the Detroit Tigers ace this season. More emasculation came in the ninth inning of that game, with two out, two runners on base and the lefthanded-hitting Raul Ibanez due up against southpaw reliever Phil Coke. Girardi chose not to pinch-hit Rodriguez for Ibanez,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], despite the fact that A-Rod had a respectable .924 OPS against lefties in the regular season.
If this wasn't the ultimate in humiliation, it sure was close. What's next-gluing his bats to the rack?
In a blink, A-Rod went from a virile force of nature to a platoon player for the final few games of the season. The Yankees' hitting failures have been wide and long,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], but only one figure embodies this remarkable weakness and it's not the slumping Robinson Cano or the whiffing Curtis Granderson.
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