DUNEDIN, Fla. — Here’s the thing with Alex Rodriguez: he just doesn’t do sincerity all that well. A year away from the game doesn’t seem to have removed the ditziness or the tin ear – at least, that’s the narrative you’ll be hearing and reading from those of us in the media. It’s our story, dammit, and we’re going to stick to it.
I don’t know if you can hear eye-balls rolling upwards. But I swear I heard it happen Saturday afternoon when after Rodriguez’s first road Grapefruit League game, he was asked about the mocking chants of ‘De-rek Jee-ter!’ that greeted his arrival in the batters box for the first two of three trips to the plate. “I actually liked that,” Rodriguez chirped. “It made me miss my buddy. Where is he right now? I’m in the box and I actually thought that …”
You know of course that Rodriguez and Jeter hated each other. I mean, you know that, right? Jeter retired from the game at the end of last season as a pinstriped saint – OK, a saint with a cellphone full of hot numbers that would make the devil himself blush – while Rodriguez is baseball’s unwanted house guest. The Yankees still owe him $64 million guaranteed over three years even if he doesn’t reach the career home run levels that could have given him a $30-million bonus payout. He won’t be their third baseman and even while being cleansed of the performance enhancing substances that led to his suspension from the game for an entire season is good for his soul and well-being, it could leave him a shell of himself as a player – let alone the concerns about health ramifications from the poison he’s reportedly ingested.
Sportsnet Magazine’s Toronto Blue Jays Special: From the heart of the order to the bottom of the bullpen, we’ve got this team covered in our preview issue. Download it right now on your iOS or Android device, free to Sportsnet ONE subscribers.
In baseball terms, Saturday’s game was a good test of where Rodriguez’s game is. He was overmatched by a 94 mph fastball from Toronto Blue Jays starter Daniel Norris for a three-pitch swinging strikeout – that pitch set up by an 0-1 breaking ball that changed his eye-level and screwed with his bat speed. He broke to home plate from third base on an easy-to-read liner off the bat of Jose Pirela, instead of tagging up. He left third base open on what luckily turned into a ground rule double by the Blue Jays’ Caleb Gindl and spun his wheels trying to tag out Ryan Goins at third base. But Rodriguez also picked up his sixth hit of the spring with an opposite-field single off Norris, and just got under a ball in his next at-bat. The single was his best moment; he looked like a veteran hitter in the spring, letting Norris’s fastball come in to deep in his stance, and meeting it.
Rodriguez’s swinging strikeout drew a loud roar from the crowd. Norris clearly humped up on the two-strike pitch – it was his best fastball of the day – but catcher Russell Martin had little trouble keeping it in perspective, despite the reputation of the man at the plate. “Alex is a smart hitter,” Martin said, when asked if he would call the same sequence in the regular season. “The key is to be unpredictable, to stay with the pitcher’s strengths and change the sequence. You go pitch to pitch … and work off the pitch before.”
“Any time I can be on time and put the ball in the air, especially to the big part of the field, is a good thing,” said Rodriguez, who is hitting .375 in 18 at-bats. “My first at-bat, I was late on everything. I just wanted to make sure I was ready in the box, and I was happy with those last two at-bats.”
In truth, all of us baseball fans should feel we have something invested in Rodriguez because, let’s face it, baseball’s better when the Yankees are good enough to dislike. And while Rodriguez is a horribly overpriced, flawed player and person … well, have you seen the Yankees roster?
So the story being written by Rodriguez this season goes well beyond his efforts to re-establish himself as a teammate and player. The announcement of his name in the starting lineup barely created a ripple among the first sell-out crowd of the spring at Florida Auto Exchange Stadium – but they let him have it during his first at-bat. And the second one. And one leather lung yelled “Hey A-Rod … no one likes you,” as Rodriguez pawed the dirt at third base – surprisingly, to a rumbling of “be quiets” and “heys …” from Yankees fans.
“The biggest surprise — and one of nicest things for me — is how great the fans have welcomed me,” Rodriguez said (to more raised eye-brows, I might add.) “It’s been a pleasant surprise. Really, I thought it was mild today but, again, I’m most focused on playing the game. After the game when I sign autographs and interact with them a bit … I’m getting feedback from fans like never before in my career – well, maybe back in my Seattle days.”
Rodriguez acknowledged that he has been signing more autographs and talking to fans more than in recent seasons. He did so Saturday, under the watchful eye of the Yankees travelling security officer. It was mild; this is Dunedin, after all, and many of the Blue Jays fans are here for the beer and sunshine. It isn’t Fenway Park in July, but there’s also no place to hide in this tiny bandbox. This is what spring training used to be: accessible to a fault, a place where a player is within touching distance, not just shouting distance.
There was a message in the fact that Rodriguez was even in Dunedin. Yankees manager Joe Girardi has kept his starting infield together for Grapefruit League games, often splitting them up with his starting outfield. So Carlos Beltran, Jacoby Ellsbury and Brett Gardner made the trip to Dunedin, while the infielders stayed behind in Tampa where Michael Pineda was pitching against the Detroit Tigers. True, Girardi was on hand in Dunedin – but he indicated it was because he wanted to see Esmil Rogers pitch. Rogers, the former Blue Jays pitcher, is battling for the fifth starter’s job on the Yankees with overhauled mechanics, using a much slower and deliberate wind-up.
“We have a guy who can play Gold Glove third base,” Rodriguez said, referring to Chase Headley. “My job is to get into the best shape I can and play a respectable third base and give Joe as many options as possible – and be ready when he calls my number.”
Pointing to his play on Goins’ slide, Rodriguez admitted that “I’m moving as good as you’re going to see me move. The days of speed are behind me.
“There’s been a lot of slow third basemen over the years – I don’t want to mention many because a lot of them are my buddies,” he added, to semi-serious chuckles from the assembled scrum. “The thing about third base is you want to be able to do one step and dive, have secure hands and a strong arm. I don’t think foot-speed is a requirement for third base … but first-step speed is, and I know I need to work on it.”
On that point, there was no doubting his sincerity. This game had a little bit of everything for the veteran player trying to earn a job – a test of his skills, his game-thinking, challenges that must be met by a guy trying to earn a job. Hard to fathom, but with his role likely restricted to designated hitter, Rodriguez just might be the most expensive hood ornament in sports. A $60-million journeyman.