Into the Woods

I don’t know know where to begin so I just will. What the hell was ARod thinking? I defended him against Red Sox Nation for FOUR YEARS living two blocks from Fenway Park. I consistently proclaimed him as the best player in baseball, and the Yankee’s MVP throughout his post season slumps. I reveled in every HR, and clutch hit; every spectacular barehanded grab and fire to first, every time he proved the critics wrong; I had maintained his greatness, and thought, this year, taking us to the post season he has made himself a Yankee forever. Well the joke is on me and every other Yankee fan who played the role of Arod-apologist. It ends here.
As I sit in my Boston condo, 500 yards from Fenway’s homeplate, minutes after the last incredible baseball team rolled over for the Red Sox, just to piss me off, I’m thinking this has been the worst October. Torre is out, the future of several free agent Yankees on the line, ARod and Snot BorAss pick tonight of all nights to announce his abandonment of the Yankees. Thanks, pick your idiom ‘insult to injury’, ’salt in my wounds’, ‘kick in the nuts’, whatever…Arod delivered in the clutch, once more this season, and he wasn’t even playing. Was he jealous that the limelight was on the Rockies and Red Sox that he had to steal 20 minutes of Sports Center? Peter Gammons said it best, “[Arod] has never played in a World Series, and perhaps there is a reason why.” He just flushed whatever was left of his baseball karma down the drain.

I also thought Scott Boras was supposed to be a businessman. How short sighted can he be if he thinks the Cubs or Angels will pay more than the Yankees, given that the Yankees still have the Texas subsidy? Did he forget that next season will be the Yankees final year in Yankee stadium, and that Arod would likely start as 3rd basemen in the last All-Star game in The House that Ruth Built? Or that he could possibly lead the Yankees to a World Series in that stadium in its final days? Or that he could hit the last HR ever at the old Yankee Stadium, and probably the first HR in new Yankee stadium? I’m not a baseball agent, but c’mon.
Finally, Arod could have taken the instability of the Yankees, as an opportunity to become a leader of the team, something the Yankees will need many of in the absence of Joe Torre. What incredible effrontery Arod showed referring to Rivera, Posada, and Pettite as “His closer”, “His catcher”, and “his pitcher”, when he does’nt even have the balls to commit to “His” team in a time of mild uncertainty. Arod had a chance to stand up and say “I believe in the Yankees and my teammates”, but he tossed that aside. Part of me hopes Cashman recants and agrees to negotiate with Arod in the free agent frenzy because he really is a great player, but part of me hopes Arod can’t even command the salary guaranteed by the contract he tossed aside, and after the stunt he pulled tonight, it may turn out that way.