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It's pretty pointless.
You CANNOT be serious!
ARod could have been the clutchiest #345 ranked tennis player in history. Nimno, what was he thinking?
It might be true that his personality is better suited to a different sport (or it might not be true, I don't know or care), but his performance certainly indicates that he chose the correct sport.
DeFord is a smart, clever guy. That is, of course, what he meant.
ARod could have been the clutchiest #345 ranked tennis player in history. Nimno, what was he thinking?
DeFord is also assuming, I think, that A-Rods natural athleticism and coordination would allow him to excel at other sports
maybe all these years Alex Rodriguez would’ve spared himself a lot of angst if he’d been playing singles by himself a few miles away, over in Queens
David Cone agrees.
I don't see that at all. He tried to pull a fast one and got caught. I thought it showed good instincts. It fooled the first base ump, but was only overruled later. 10 years ago, it doesn't get overturned and he is a hero who thinks on his feet.
Don't ask me to defend his ABs against the Tigers though.
That will be around the time A-Rod approaches Bonds's career HR record. Everybody will root for A-Rod, because they prefer his d-bagginess to Bonds's assholery.
DeFord is also assuming, I think, that A-Rods natural athleticism and coordination would allow him to excel at other sports
Being 345th in the world is excelling at tennis, it's just a long way from his equivalent position in baseball. 2 sport stars are very rare and extrapolating ARod's baseball career to any other strikes me as silly.
I haven't read SI in a million years but hear Deford on NPR once in a while. Sometimes he's very interesting and thought provoking, sometimes not. IMO, this one belongs in the latter category.
I couldn't possibly agree more.
I don't see that at all. He tried to pull a fast one and got caught. I thought it showed good instincts. It fooled the first base ump, but was only overruled later. 10 years ago, it doesn't get overturned and he is a hero who thinks on his feet.
I agree with this as well. And the "I got it!" thing when rounding third base, same deal: strong competitive desire, and an "inside baseball" move that was utterly standard for decades.
Can something be a poohsie* move and be heads-up at the same time? That's how the slap and the "I got it" moves affected me.
* Using the Sean Connery Goldfinger pronunciation of Miss Galore's first name.
And I don't understand that reaction at all. Both moves were SOP old-fashioned hard-nosed play-to-win baseball, that wouldn't have been perceived as anything other than heads-up and "gamer" tactics for the vast majority of baseball history. What the hell do you think Eddie Stanky would do in those situations?
I interpret passive acceptance of defeat as the poohsie move, exactly the opposite of what A-Rod did.
The slap was against the rules. The "I got it" would probably have gotten a fella knocked down in the old days, but it's perfectly legal.
But if it had worked, man on 2nd and 3rd, with no outs. The difference between Jeter on 1st and 2nd wasn't that great. And it almost worked. A few years ago it would have worked.
Worth the risk.
I can't always understand my reactions either. :)
Fine, but it's kind of picking nits. Either way A-Rod wasn't just quietly accepting his tag, but attempting some gamesmanship to give his team whatever edge he could give it.
The foo-faw over what a sin he'd committed baffled me then, and still does.
Yes. Thank you. It wasn't the idea that was bad, it was the dooshy execution. It's why a guy like Jason Kendall is more beloved even though he sucks. (I'm referring here to a play he made as an Athletic when he stuck his face--his face!--into oncoming cleats to tag a guy out at the plate after a wildpitch. Kendall just does stuff like that without thinking.) A-Rod should have just flattened Arroyo.
Extremely well said. I don't even have the energy to stand up for him anymore. Things seemed to turn around for him this last year and this year in New York, but during August, fan perception reverted.
But it is more than just New York. Sutcliffe just killed him yesterday in the ninth inning on the broadcast, after he hit the home run. He said the Yankees had been to the playoffs six of the last eight years, then Arod comes aboard, and they haven't been since. ARod is the one constant. He insinuated he is bad in the clubhouse, and said Jeter is the true champion.
The guy just hit a ####### bomb, the 549th of his career, and Sutcliffe is in the booth just ####### tearing to shreds.
I will never understand this, but I will tell you this, If I am ever lucky enough to have grandkids, I will tell them about the great players of era, and it won't be Derek Jeter,Edgar Renteria, Kirby Puckett or some other clutch god, it will be tales of Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Mariano Rivera and Greg Maddux. (though I will probably speak highly of El Duque and Dave Steib too)
I will play Devil's Advocate here, because I'm sure everyone agrees with you. And I agree with you that ARod and Pujols are the best players of the era. But what tales are you going to tell about them? You went to a game, and they hit a homerun? Their VORP? They're great players, but how many truly memorable plays have they been involved with?
On the other side of the coin, take Jeter. Again, I agree that he's nowhere near as good as the others, but I can immediately come up with memorable tales of Jeter, whether its diving into the stands in the game against the Sox, or the backhanded flip against the A's. These are tales.
Lets put it this way. My father was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan in the 1940's and 1950's. He has told me tales about watching Jackie Robinson play, dancing in the basepaths, driving pitchers to distraction. He has never told me a story about Duke Snider, because there aren't any stories to tell. Doesn't mean the Duke wasn't a hell of a player.
This is a good A-Rod story.
Pujols, at least, hit a home run that's as memorable as any play Jeter ever made. Rodriguez doesn't really have that one moment yet, but he's likely to break the all time home run record and all it takes is one at bat anyway in the right situation to give him that moment and to turn his entire reputation around.
That's because you have no character. Gamesmanship is dishonourable and conduct unbecoming a man. The fact that it has become popular for corrupt souls to try and drape the shameful in virtue does nothing to change this fact.
The point of competition isn't too win but to demonstrate your excellence against a worthy adversary. Gamesmanship prioritizes results over character and is demeaning to everyone involved because it makes arete irrelevant.
I had no idea A-Rod had hit for the cycle in his career. Other than his lack of a WS ring, it's unreal how complete his resume is. Multiple MVPs/GGs/All Star games. A 40/40 season. Multiple 50 HR seasons. Hit for the cycle. Stratospheric career counting stats. Lifetime .300 hitter (so far). I agree 100% with #24.
This hateful racist stereotyping has got to stop.
<wink>
sounds a lot like ... the other A-Rod
I will tell them of the play at third in the Jeter faceplant game, the single greatest defensive play I have seen a 3b make.
Mostly, I will tell them of the mammoth homers he hit.
Mammoth homers can be good, but only if they are truly mammoth. ARod hits a lot of homers, but I can't remember too many where I could actually describe how far they went. Mantle hit mammoth home runs. Reggie. Stargell. McGwire. Of all the players I've ever rooted for, Darrell Strawberry hit the most memorable ones. There are other guys who hit a ton of homeruns, but weren't really known for shots of that magnitude. I never thought of ARod as hitting the truly memorable ones, and that's certainly not meant to slight him as a ballplayer, but you watch him play more often.
I will tell people when I was late for the movies with my family last easter because Arod was up with two outs in the ninth and I knew he was going to hit a homer.
How many homeruns has he hit with two outs in the ninth inning to win a game?
yup - the opposite-field upper-decker in Yankee Stadium ('06, I think), the 2-run shot off of Schilling in 2005 (man, was that one satisfying), the extra-innings shot off of Papelbon last year ... I have plenty of good memories
This one, for sure, I know he had a walkoff against the Braves. He had 8 9th or later homers last year.
Down to his last strike, Rodriguez came through in the most dramatic way, sending a soaring drive into the center-field bleachers, Yankee Stadium's famed black seats. His grand slam off Chris Ray, A-Rod's second home run Saturday, gave the Yankees a memorable 10-7 victory over the Baltimore Orioles.
"It felt awesome," Rodriguez said in the clubhouse, still smiling, the ball perched on a shelf in his locker. "I was so excited, I felt like a fool running around the bases, like it was Little League."
He has real, legit, mammoth shots.
I became a baseball fan the day Pujols went 5-5 with three homers and a double and pretty much beat the Cubs singlehandedly. That's a pretty good story. He had another three homer game where the last one was a walkoff.
He also hit the double that tied game 7 of the NLCS, right before Rolen homered to put us in the lead for good. In fact, that entire series constitutes a good story - he hit .500/.563/1.000 to put the Cardinals in the World Series.
And, of course, there's Game 5, NLCS, 2005.
My favorite Pujols story: Cards-Cubs, July 4th 2003. Kerry Wood throws a pitch that sends Pujols to the ground. He gets up, brushes himself off, and sends the next pitch into the stands. Don't #### with AP.
The one he hit last night was freakin insane. It would have left the stadium if the stadium hadn't been domed. Flaherty was telling a story about him hitting a HR out to dead center in old Tiger Stadium on a line drive when he was breaking in. I've seen him hit a few deep, deep, deep, into Left Center in Yankee stadium.
Of course, that may not matter if the Yankees don't win the WS while he is there. But knocking Bonds off the top spot on the career HR list, if Rodriguez can do it, will matter to a lot of people, I think.
The point of competition isn't too win but to demonstrate your excellence against a worthy adversary. Gamesmanship prioritizes results over character and is demeaning to everyone involved because it makes arete irrelevant.
Uh-huh.
Sort of like Schmidt and Luzinski. Schmidt, like Pujols, hit hard, fast, scary line drives, whereas Luzinski hit moon shots like A-Rod.
There is nothing terribly haunting about such a great player not being part of a World Champion: Ted Williams wasn't, Barry Bonds wasn't. What makes AROD's case agonizing is that unlike Williams (bound by the reserve clause) or Bonds (who seems always to have wanted to play in San Francisco, win or lose), AROD got to have his cake (Mr Hicks's money) and then to be just about to eat it (up 3-0 in the '04 ALCS, getting his hair ready for the tickertape) and never to have really gotten a decent nibble at it since.
The idea that somehow AROD has special failings which have prevented his teams from getting that ring is, in a word, nuts.
It's beyond nuts. It's laughably, ridiculously stupid.
Yet it's the implicit foundation of A-Rod criticism far and wide, and quite often it's even explicit.
Thome: 10
Sosa: 10
Ortiz: 9 + 2 or 3 in the post season
Guerrero: 9
ARod: 7
Pujols: 6
Delgado: 5
Puckett: 4 + 1 post season
Jeter: 1 + 1 post season
Manny: 1 (happened in 1996)
ARod does pretty well on this list, although nothing out of the ordinary, at least as far as homerun hitters go. Interestingly, he didn't hit a single walk off until 2002, several years into his career, and has hit about one a year since.
ARod's last walk off homerun was in April of 2007. Its been a while.
i vote Uncle
and i would have BEFORE game 5, too
I think you missed his walk-off in the ALDS last year
So did Clemens, and look where that got him. But seriously, I think Rodriguez led last year in average home run distance according to Hit Tracker. He doesn't have a reputation for hitting Mantle-esque moonshots, but he probably should. I think it's his swing; he's got that one-handed follow through that looks casual.
EDIT: I checked and couldn't quickly find last year's figures, but he's second this year in average distance behind Dunn.
Part of what baseball's appeal is, though, is that it's about the little things that build up impressions of greatness over the long season, and over the years beyond that. The signature moments aren't as much a part of the game.
Agreed - he doesn't hunch over like Ortiz or squat down like Pujols, so he doesn't look as intimidating. His swing is long and fluid, which disguises his batspeed. He just doesn't look like a slugger, which sort of masks his power.
This is pretty much exactly what Sutcliffe and "OB" were saying yesterday.
Exactly why is it that Sutcliffe has the job he has? He combines an annoying reedy sing-song vocal delivery with utter bedrock idiocy of content. Does he have a redeeming quality at all?
Well, he did star in two World Series, including the one that the Dodgers won, and in fact was probably the best World Series performer over a long stretch that the Brooklyns ever had. So believe me, he had his signature moments.
But it's true that he had of a bit of the D-Bag rep in his time, much of which centered around an article he wrote for either Collier's or the Saturday Evening Post that was titled, "I PLAY BASEBALL FOR MONEY, NOT FUN." Talk about sacrilege, especially back then.
But maybe he wrote the article for fun? And if not, the Collier's crowd must have been pissed.
That being said, A-Rod lost any rights to complain to me when he tucked his tail between his legs and came crying back "home" to the fans that detest him and everything he stands for. If he had taken "a bit" less money to play for a team and a fanbase that would have supported him and told the Yankees to shove it I would have been impressed. Instead, he gets what he asked for.
To think this guy grew up a Met fan...
Well, we all know Dunn's useless, so A-Rod can be second most useless.
(I'm not sure. I think Manny's third.)
Give me Jetes and Paul O'Neil any day.
Ask Brad Lidge.
My thoughts as well - I don't feel sorry for him anymore - he's the dumb ass that went back there. What a crumb
While I agree with this, it isn't where my primary interest is. I don't care about ARod as a person one way or the other. I care very much about him as a baseball player, and in that regard I find the widespread denigration of him, well, pathetic.
It is more than just Yankee fans, as witnessed by Sutcliffe. Its like the nation has just adopted this and ran with it.
People are stupid.
I'm not so sure. It's kind of noticable how much more choking goes on in the Ryder Cup than on the tour itself, when everyone is just playing for themselves.
I kind of like to sit back sometimes and imagine what a Halberstam-style October 2004 book would read like. The A-Rod chapter would burst with praise, with a few paragraphs about an interesting play that happened in which he tried to slap a ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove, and much was made of it later. But it would be objectively told, and not with swipes made at his character in the process.
This is an astute point. I agree as well.
So, no one got my McEnroe joke, then?
Sorry Shooty, let's hug.
Homo!
Naw, I'm kidding. I'm totally a hugger. Big hugs at ya!
My favorite was the time he totally faked the #### out of a catcher when he was coming home on a play at the plate: Juked low, then flung himself headlong over the tag like a high jumper and caught the edge of the plate with one hand as he came down. Pure magic.
Kicking Gary Sheffield in the face is a close second.
I see a few parallels between A-Rod and Aaron (for example, A-Rod never cracked 60 during an era when lesser players were, and he hasn't won as much as people think he should) and I wonder how Aaron would be handled playing now.
Hmmm. I think he'd be beloved like Cal Ripken, actually. Good guy, played just about every day, very consistent, but also exuded dignity (real or perceived), no off field shenanigans.
Yeah, I know '57 trips me up a little bit in drawing a comparison. Since this is totally hypothetical anyway, let's say he wins the MVP but his team loses in the post-season.
Shooty brings up what I perceive to be the bigger issue with A-Rod. Regardless of whether his lack of clutchiness is real or imagined, I think there's something in the way he carries himself that makes people look for things to not like about him. I don't think it has as much to do with the money as some je ne sais quoi. Maybe he just reveals a vulnerability somehow -- maybe emotional, something in his character -- that sports titans just aren't supposed to have. I think the real source of A-Rod hate is gray, and leaves fans gesturing at numbers that don't really belie his actual talent.
I wouldn't want him on my team, as great as he is. His baggage really seems to suck the joy out of rooting for him.
I'd forgive it and take his numbers on my team any time, but he seems a bit odd, that's for sure.
Just to be clear, I think A-Rod is amazing and would love to have him on my team. But, and this is out of character for me, I get why Yankee fans don't like him. There's just something ineffable about him that breeds a combination of distrust and impatience. I think Yankee fans want to embrace him, but can't. It's the damnedest thing I've ever witnessed as a baseball fan and the damnedest thing I've EXPERIENCED. The writer in me is fascinated by it.
He sometimes looks self-conscious, like he's not comfortable in his own skin. Tough to explain, but that's the best I can do.
A-Rod's said in the past that he's spent time in therapy, so it wouldn't surprise me if maybe he really does struggle with those types of issues.
Regardless, his greatness as a player is beyond question and for all that people here think of him as douche-like, he doesn't seem like a bad guy by professional athlete standards. If nothing else, he has a good reputation for working with and mentoring young players, both in Texas and NY.
Agreed. There's really no explicit reason for the dislike, which makes it all the more interesting.
I really think I'm onto something with the body language. He looks vulnerable, uncomfortable at times. When he digs in against a tough pitcher, down in the count, all I can think of is a little kid trying to look tough, but on the verge of tears. I believe people pick up on this on a subconscious level and it makes THEM uncomfortable, which explains some of the hate/dislike.
Compared to the swagger of a Barry Bonds, or the relaxed, confident body language of Derek Jeter, it's odd and jarring to see.
Agreed. There's really no explicit reason for the dislike, which makes it all the more interesting.
I really think I'm onto something with the body language. He looks vulnerable, uncomfortable at times. When he digs in against a tough pitcher, down in the count, all I can think of is a little kid trying to look tough, but on the verge of tears. I believe people pick up on this on a subconscious level and it makes THEM uncomfortable, which explains some of the hate/dislike.
Compared to the swagger of a Barry Bonds, or the relaxed, confident body language of Derek Jeter, it's odd and jarring to see.
Sometimes our posters can't see the forest for the trees. Even a junior scout could condense ARod's problem to a simple declarative:
ARod doesn't have a "good face"
yeah, I missed that too. My bad, Shooty.
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