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Posted: Tue 23:29, 13 Aug 2013 Post subject: Once Alex Rodriguez signed his huge contract-spun5 |
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Once Alex Rodriguez signed his huge contract
There was a time when Alex Rodriguez was touted because the guy who could relieve us of Barry Bonds as the home run king. He was young, healthy as well as an MVP contender each year.
If anyone deserved $30 million a year, it had been him. That's a stretch - "deserve" $30 million annually. Maybe discovering relief from cancer, world hunger or global peace, but not hitting. Who's worth that number? Surely not a baseball player. Funny,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise gets the same for any movie, nobody raises an eyebrow.
No discussion about Alex Rodriguez can be complete without the subject of cash. For an athlete who dedicates his life to his craft, how big the paycheque is a major factor. Nobody has ever refused money or given money back. Athletes are entertainers, some ridiculously high-paid entertainers.
In a perfect world, entertainers would not be allowed to earn more money than doctors, cops or anybody whose work designed a difference to society. Ours isn't a perfect world, so things get out of balance. Something similar to a young super-athlete, who played baseball for an eccentric owner, within an era when expanded TV, media, Internet and general economic growth seemed evident, was part of a perfect storm.
Alex Rodriguez was cursed. At the time he'd no idea, none people did. That contract changed him and baseball and it has been an encumbrance to a lot of. An encumbrance to which he needs to play,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], fans need to watch and baseball needs to exist. Alex Rodriguez's career should never be appreciated.
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Is the burden of cash at the bottom of all of his problems? Alex Rodriguez, for all intents and purposes, is a good guy. His problem, sometimes, appears to be the perception he comes off as insincere, insecure and even a bit fake. What mega-athlete does not have that side for their personality? Used to do. OK,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], Peyton Manning and Tom Brady,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], just off the surface of my head, but that is about where it ends.
LeBron, Kobe and Tiger, there's a quick three to compare. However the anti-A-Rod - Derek Jeter - still at a level where salary might be an issue,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], is beloved and respected by everyone. CC Sabathia and Mark Teixeira are also about the Yankees and make a lot more than $20 million each, plus they escape the daily wrath and scrutiny.
Could it be money,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], personality or the combination which makes Alex so polarizing?
To make a point, two personal stories. After his first couple of years like a teenaged major league shortstop in Seattle, I met him before a golf event in Fort Lauderdale. I'd retired many years earlier, he was just beginning his career, and that i sensed an excellent respect because he addressed me as Mr. Schmidt. It helped me feel old, but simultaneously, he impressed me with his approach.
Go forward towards the All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium in 2008 when he was one homer away from my 548 on the all-time homer chart. I was standing around third base, I had been a little uncomfortable not knowing what to say, so I tried to make conversation by mentioning the home run list. He asked me basically was planning on being there to determine him match me. It was sort of an aloof response to my question - to ask if I was planning on following him till he tied me would be a little presumptuous along with a blow to my ego. It came off because the exact opposite of our first meeting. This was 500 home runs and $200 million later.
I might be reading an excessive amount of into these moments; Alex wouldn't even remember them. He was there to play the overall game,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], not keep on a conversation about home run records beside me. Only the wrong selection of words in a stressful moment, that can happen.
Alex has a high profile,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], tries so hard to be normal, and can't accomplish it. No one making $30 million a year could. If he were a rock star, who'd care? He plays America's game in front of us for seven months. He can't hide.
The reason he's so polarizing lies in this story. In him, all of us visit a guy who hit the sports lottery and that we think,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], whether it were us, life would be a bowl of cherries and it would be simple to be everything to everyone. When the tables were completed that exchange in the All-Star Game, I'd have said to him that I'd be honoured if he were present when I tied and passed him, and that i would send my jet to create him there. Is the fact that crazy?
So many people say to me which i came along in baseball Two decades too early. They are saying, 'Imagine what you'd make if you played today.' My answer is simple and has two parts: I'd be Alex Rodriguez, and I'm glad I am not.
We are alike for the reason that we both were shortstops and moved to third base. We both hit home runs, produced runs, won Gold Gloves, won MVP awards and a World Series championship. The majority of my career I had been the highest or close to the highest-paid player in baseball. During the last decade, and forever, it's him. We played underneath the highest pressure and expectations.
I might be one person that has walked in the shoes. Of course, it had been Philadelphia, not Ny. It was $2 million, not $30 million. And the world in which he lives is drastically different than mine. Make no mistake, few would qualify to become both highest paid hanging around and 0 for 20 inside a post-season.
I understand how it is like to be directly on the ball and miss it, and also the rare occasions you connect it's caught. Imagine in the ALCS opener against Detroit, bases loaded, if Alex's rope within the hole in the second inning was six inches to the left. He'd drive in two runs, the pressure is off and maybe none of this happens.
Instead, Jhonny Peralta dives and catches it for that third out, another failure in the clutch. Within the 1983 World Series, I finished 1 for 25. However in my first couple of at-bats, I lined to centre field with men on base. Those balls find the gap and I'd go as far to say the Series outcome against Baltimore would have been different.
The post-season can be cruel, especially cruel to people hitters who're likely to produce and lead their teams. In baseball, players are meant to be judged over a long period, not really a two-week post-season. Hitting is inconsistent and never says goodbye. This time of year, the big, high-paid boys are supposed to hit, but many don't. Check it, there are other hitting stars who fail in the post-season than succeed. Look at Robinson Cano and Curtis Granderson - a whole lot worse than Alex, but who's making the headlines?
Let's suppose he'd never signed that contract, made a normal amount and not had a brush with performance-enhancing drugs. Imagine if there were no Internet, no Twitter or Facebook, only a couple of newspapers and radio shows, and limited television exposure. Would he be today's Mickey Mantle?
But that's the reality, and due to it he's his $200 million and the pressure that comes with it. He signed on for this and now he faces challenges few if any ever have. I was never benched, never removed for a pinch hitter. The Phillies believed I had been always one swing from changing a game along with a series. Apparently, Joe Girardi didn't feel the same about Alex Rodriguez.
Alex appears to my eye to be a fundamentally sound and potentially very productive hitter. Staying healthy at 37 is the issue. Age is really a funny thing. I seemed to hit a wall in my late 30s. I can't explain it apart from to express fastballs I used to hit a long way wound up on the warning track, nagging injuries increased, I did not reach groundballs I used to consume.
So that as this happened, I began to doubt my ability. I had an excuse: I was old,[link widoczny dla zalogowanych], so I retired. It will happen most of us. However in Alex's case, when it does - if it isn't happening now - it will not be that easy. He will be making $30 million annually, guaranteed! For that kind of money, you are not permitted to get old.
Hall of famer Mike Schmidt and Alex Rodriguez have both won three MVP awards and a World Series title. Schmidt hit 548 home runs and would be a 12-time all-star; Rodriguez has 647 homers and is a 14-time all-star.
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