A-Rod wilts in dog days
ANAHEIM - After good games or bad, Alex Rodriguez has a habit of jutting out
his bottom lip so it curls into a pout. It's a pose that stains his cover-boy
charm.
Appearances can be deceptive. When A-Rod truly connects with other humans,
when he looks them in the eye rather than at a spot on their forehead, he can
be quite enchanting. The trouble, as with most everything regarding A-Rod, is
deciphering the authentic from the fake. Even the man at the center
understands he sometimes creates nearly as many questions as he does answers.
"I played great baseball all year. I played like a dog the last five games,"
A-Rod was saying early this morning, after the Yankees' season ended with a
whimper, with a 5-3 loss to the Angels that surely will have major
repercussions on an organization where winning is a higher priority than
breathing.
He framed his replies in various ways, pausing to chew on his bottom lip
before saying all the right things about the wrong outcome. It was a solemn
visitors' clubhouse, following a cross-country trip by both teams. Last
October the Yankees were stunned when their season ended so dramatically in
their own house against Boston, their most hated opponent.
Now they just seemed weary, as if the Angels had sat on their chests for nine
innings. After going hitless in four at-bats, after striking out once and
grounding out another time with runners in scoring position, after hitting
into a double play with nobody out in the ninth, A-Rod was the first player
to reach his locker and stare into the cameras.
"Maybe if I could've contributed some we'd be moving onto Chicago," he said.
"At the end of the day you lose as a team. I just didn't show up."
His regular-season numbers were eye-poppingly real: a .321 average, 48 home
runs, 130 RBI, countless spectacular plays in the field. But until he proves
them wrong, many Yankee fans will remember him as a tease; there are some who
are so blinded by their disgust of a Yankee season gone awry, they will even
stoop to calling A-Rod a charlatan, a fraud.
Those labels are far too harsh for someone who still might be the American
League's Most Valuable Player. At least A-Rod can say he outlasted David
Ortiz in the playoffs, for once. But beyond that slight accomplishment,
A-Rod's second postseason with the Yankees again was a bust.
He was quite adept at getting hit by pitches and drawing walks in the series
against the Angels, not so smooth when it came to completing the tasks for
which George Steinbrenner is paying him the hard part of a contract worth
$252 million.
Will Steinbrenner today issue a press release slamming A-Rod for his virtual
no-show in the division series, especially in last night's loser-goes-home
Game 5? Probably not. Instead, The Boss will waste reams of words on the
supposed failings of Joe Torre, Brian Cashman, Mel Stottlemyre and the travel
agents who did nothing to stop this major embarrassment.
Such is life in a land where parades up the Canyon of Heroes are but a
long-lost dream. A-Rod failed to drive in a single run against the Angels. He
had two hits in 15 at-bats across five games, and while the first-round loss
was nowhere near his sole responsibility, it will be remembered for
generations as another postseason when A-Rod laid low. There are Yankee fans
who have yet to forgive him for that 2-for-17 finish to last year's ALCS.
There were other Yankees who shrank just as miserably when the moment grew
large. In retrospect, it might not have been the wisest of moves to leave
Mike Mussina in the O.C. by his lonesome for four whole days. He must have
driven himself crazy sitting in that hotel room and staring at pitching
charts. Mussina couldn't hold a two-run gift lead and never got out of the
third inning. Randy Johnson was three days too late. Hideki Matsui and Jason
Giambi failed to carry their weight.
"I still believe we're the best team in baseball," A-Rod said. "I'll always
think that. You can't question our effort."
A-Rod, Mussina, Matsui, Giambi and Johnson - they all signed with the Yankees
for the money and the glory and the fame. Mostly, they say, they signed for
the ring. Torre said he sensed A-Rod was over-anxious, though not in the way
he was last October, when his blunders against the Red Sox turned into
screen-savers for millions of laptops. Torre also said A-Rod's success
depended on whether the leadoff hitter got on base, which only made last
night's failures all the more blinding.
Derek Jeter's home run in the seventh cut the Angels' lead to two, but A-Rod
followed with a meek grounder to short. In the ninth, after Jeter singled,
A-Rod hit into that double play, 5-4-3, and walked slowly to the dugout,
gnawing on his lip. The Angels' mad celebration began as soon as Matsui
grounded out sharply, and it was still raging an hour later when A-Rod pulled
his wife into the clubhouse and embraced her in a silent hug.
"I didn't get it done," he said. "I've got to look in the mirror." Even A-Rod
must have wondered which face he'd see.
Originally published on October 11, 2005
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