Some will tell you it’s the money with Alex Rodriguez.
And the money hasn’t helped. That first contract, for $252 million, with the Rangers? That odd number was reached so he could exactly double the existing record for professional sports, the $126 million Kevin Garnett got from the Timberwolves. And there was the second contract, with all those bonuses to hit home runs 660, 714, 715 and so on that Willie Mays, Babe Ruth and Henry Aaron hit for free.
But A-Rod isn’t the only one who has made absurd amounts of money in his day. Albert Pujols has robbed the Angels blind; nobody has booed Pujols with any kind of comparable fervor the past two years, not even Angels fans who are paying for Pujols’ calcifying career. And it should be noted: A-Rod did win three MVPs after signing for obscene money. He hasn’t exactly been a bust.
Some will tell you it’s the steroids with Alex Rodriguez.
And the steroids haven’t helped, whether it was lying about using them on “60 Minutes” or admitting to using them in the spring of 2009, or now that he is the most infamous of the accused involved in the Biogenesis ring, or the fact baseball invested so much of its hope in A-Rod, believing he would cleanse the record books when he hit his 800th home run, a clean hero exposed as artificially aided, if not completely filthy.
But A-Rod isn’t the only one who has been outed as a user of performance-enhancing drugs. Andy Pettitte admitted to it after he was exposed, and every time he shows his face at Yankee Stadium he’s greeted like a favorite cousin. Jason Giambi rarely feels wrath. David Ortiz, exposed in the same nefarious revelation as A-Rod, is booed at Yankee Stadium but that has far more to do with a career-long habit of killing the home team than for anything he may have injected, swallowed or rubbed.
Some will tell you it’s the on-field silliness with Alex Rodriguez.
And that stuff hasn’t helped, whether it was trying to slap the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s hands in Game 6 of the ’04 ALCS, or yelling “HA!” at Howie Clark, the Toronto infielder who was settling under a pop-up, or jogging across Dallas Braden’s mound in Oakland, or the time he made a thousand book, magazine and newspaper covers by getting entangled in Jason Varitek’s mask.
But A-Rod has never been accused of being a preener, even though he’s hit more home runs — and had more chances to preen — than all but four men who ever lived. When he has two healthy legs, he runs out every ground ball, always takes the extra base, and was gracious enough to insist Cal Ripken switch positions with him at the 2001 All-Star Game, a classy tribute for which he has rarely been given enough credit.
Some will tell you it’s the off-field nonsense with Alex Rodriguez.
And, sure: Given a mulligan, he probably would take back that picture of him gazing in the mirror. And maybe he would have kept his shirt on in Central Park. And maybe he would have selected propriety over fun with all those poker nights. And maybe he could have chosen more low-profile hook-ups, and a less messy way for his marriage to dissolve.
But A-Rod never has gotten a DUI. He never has taken a swing at anybody after a beer or three too many. Manny Ramirez once leveled a 65-year-old traveling secretary for not coming up with extra tickets; Rodriguez has never come close to that kind of ridiculousness.
Maybe this explains it: As a player, the whole has always been greater than the sum of its parts, mostly because he does so many things so well and the sum, necessarily, is greater than almost anyone else who ever lived. And maybe that reality has a flip side, too. A five-tool player and a four-tool target.
* In this column two weeks ago, the theater that will stage “Bronx Bombers,” starring Joe Pantoliano, was misidentified. It will be playing at the The Duke on 42nd Street Theater.
Vac’s Whacks
If The “Eye in the Sky” is a good enough system for hockey — and for Vegas — it ought to be plenty good enough for baseball. Baseball is challenging enough without an endless supply of challenges.
* A week from tomorrow, at 9 p.m., HBO will premiere a wonderful documentary about the great Marty Glickman, and it comes just in time because there are increasing generations of sports fans who not only have grown up without that forever voice by their side, but also without knowing what an amazing, complicated journey Glickman’s full athletic life was. Forget slogans. This really IS must-see television.
* A pox on the Phillies’ house for not letting Charlie Manuel — one of the truly good guys in all of sports — finish out this season. I suspect 98.4 percent of Mets fans won’t agree with this, but it is hard to root against a guy as devoted to his craft — and as unfailingly honest — as Manuel always has been. He deserved a better exit than this.
* Have an A-1 day!
Whack back at vac
John Siciliano: Alex Rodriguez’s press conference in Chicago was the worst acting job since the Doobie Brothers appeared on “What’s Happening!”
Vac: Sure, this is a wee bit dated. But whenever you can give some love to Raj, Rerun and the gang — and perpetuate “Which Doobie you be?” — it must happen.
Bruce Welsch: Last year the Nats shut down Strasburg. This year the Mets are putting Harvey and Wheeler on inning limits and so I wonder: in 10 years, will there not be a World Series because all pitchers will be shut down before the end of the season?
Vac: Well, put it this way: Baseball’s TV ratings probably wouldn’t get any worse if it just went to an all-T-ball postseason format, right?
@HenleyFrey71: Will the Rockford Peaches sign Phil Hughes during the offseason?
@MikeVacc: Not if they play in Wrigley, where even more F-9s will turn into HRs than they do at Yankee Stadium.
Derek Laino: Where do you think the Yankees would have been and where would they be now had they never traded for A-Rod and instead signed Soriano to a long-term deal?
Vac: I don’t think it’s debatable who the better player has been these last 9 1/2 years. But there certainly would have been fewer Excedrin headaches for the Yankees in that time, and a few thousand fewer gallons guzzled of Pepto-Bismol.
