NEW YORK – Even by New York Yankees standards, Alex Rodriguez is taking the drama to a whole other level.
Between his alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs, an appeal of his 211-game suspension, conspiratorial accusations against his team’s front office, regular strategic leaks, and Sunday’s plunking from Ryan Dempster that preceded his home run, the tarnished third baseman is generating controversy at an unprecedented pace.
Gong show doesn’t even begin to describe it.
The Toronto Blue Jays step into the scene when they open a four-game series at Yankee Stadium with a split double-header Tuesday, attempting to avoid becoming enmeshed in the fiasco while turning around a 1-8 mark against New York so far this season.
So forget A-Rod, they’ve got themselves to worry about.
The Yankees, on the other hand, have somewhat surprisingly managed to go 7-5 since the Rodriguez sideshow arrived, so how much he’s hurting as opposed to helping (he’s batting .319/.407/.489 with two homers and six RBIs) is open to debate.
What’s certain is that no one likes all the relentless background noise.
“Listen, none of this stuff is productive,” Yankees GM Brian Cashman told reporters in Boston on Sunday. “Being involved with Biogenesis isn’t productive. We’ve never had anything like this. This is my 16th year here, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Is this a distraction? For me, yes,” he said at another point. “I can’t speak for others but I know it’s definitely a distraction for me. I’ve got a lot of extra work from this stuff. It’s very frustrating.”
Rhetoric and gamesmanship aside, what will be interesting to watch is whether Dempster’s obviously intentional pegging of Rodriguez in New York’s 9-6 victory over the Red Sox turns into a sustained galvanizing moment for the Yankees.
As much as his teammates may resent the turmoil, the sight of an opponent taking three shots in the same at-bat at one of their own is even more intolerable than the intolerable A-Rod.
The way manager Joe Girardi, himself uncomfortable with the mess he must deal with, charged out to ream out plate umpire Brian O’Nora sent a message of unity amid the madness, underlining that as long as he’s in uniform he’s a part of the team.
Rodriguez’s sixth-inning home run off the Canadian right-hander was indeed “the ultimate payback,” as he put it, helping the Yankees, still on the fringes of post-season contention, to an important victory.
At the same time, Dempster’s selfish and pointless act helped cost the Red Sox a contest they needed and a game in the standings to the charging Tampa Bay Rays, who are now one off of the AL East lead.
The “I was just trying to pitch inside,” explanation he offered afterwards was beyond weak, and the fact that he also violated generally accepted plunking practices by missing twice and still trying to hit Rodriguez a third time – a similar act led Canada to brawl with Mexico at the World Baseball Classic – only made it worse.
For a Red Sox team that’s been so good and so team-oriented all season long, and that’s playing for bigger things, how could Dempster lose the plot so badly and so needlessly?
As unpalatable as it is to admit, Rodriguez was absolutely right when he said afterwards: “Whether you like me or hate me, what’s wrong is wrong. That was unprofessional and silly.”
Of course, A-Rod is typically the last person who should be lecturing others on acting unprofessional and silly, what with an appeal of his 211-game suspension for use of PEDs and obstructing Major League Baseball’s investigation into Biogenesis hanging over his head, a nasty set of accusations flying back and forth between him and the Yankees, and constant controversy.
Over the weekend alone his ever-changing camp was accused of ratting out other Biogenesis players, and wiring money to lawyers of the disgraced clinic’s founder Anthony Bosch, while his new lawyer, Joe Tacopina, accused the Yankees’ medical staff of misleading Rodriguez about his hip injury, and claimed team president Randy Levine told a surgeon he never wanted the player to take the field again.
Even if there is some truth to Rodriguez’s contention that the Yankees are trying to run him out of the game to avoid paying the remainder of his $275-million, 10-year deal (“the pink elephant” in the room), it’s impossible to give him the benefit of the doubt.
From gambling at underground poker clubs, to travelling with strippers, to sending his phone number to a woman in the stands after getting pulled from a game in last year’s ALCS against the Detroit Tigers, A-Rod is an unsavoury dude that more often than not puts himself in the spotlight for the wrong reasons.
His fate rests in the hands of lawyers, and whenever matters end up in the hands of an arbitrator, there are no guarantees about how things play out (see Ryan Braun’s analytical positive).
The plan from Rodriguez’s camp seems to be to discredit Bosch, the Yankees and Major League Baseball as much as possible, while skirting the issue of whether or not he used performance-enhancing substances.
MLB officials will counter with piles of evidence so damning that everyone else tied to Biogenesis accepted their punishments without appeal, including Braun, as bold-faced a liar as baseball has seen in quite a while.
In the interim A-Rod will remain where he seems most comfortable, in the centre of the circus, dragging others into the fray, whether they like it or not.