Monday, October 29, 2007

Post-script: A-Rod: A Cheating "Mine" Field

A lot has been written in the media today about the timing of Alex Rodriguez's (or Scott Boras's, depending upon how you view the situation) announcement that A-Rod will opt-out of his contract with the yankees.

Now look, I will spare you the lecture about why this was poor form and just a total dick move. If you honestly don't think it was a big deal, then I am unlikely to be able to convince you here.

I am only putting up this short post because a wise man once wrote, after describing the unofficial rules of baseball, the "code," that:

A-Rod, of course, does not feel bound by this code, and engages in the kind of tit-for-tat, petty bullshit that makes people absolutely hate him.

Last night was just one more piece of evidence in the case for why people dislike A-Rod. You do not have to dislike him, and he is certainly an amazing ballplayer, but the one thing I cannot understand is not when people defend him, but when people pretend to have no clue why anyone would be so anti-A-Rod. It's not the money, I could honestly give a shit. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates make A-Rod look like a street urchin. It is the way he carries himself -- on and off of the field -- and the very visible differences between the "right" way to do things, and the way A-Rod does them. That's not why you have to dislike A-Rod, it's just the reason that a lot of reasonable people and fans of the game do.

2 comments:

Open Bar said...

Though I definitely get the feeling that it was Boras's choice, as far as the timing of the announcement, A-Rod certainly could've told him, "Hey man, how 'bout you wait till, like, I dunno, the day after the World Series or somethin'?"

(Oh, and well done with the lowercase "y" on yankees.)

Side Bar said...

the lower case "y" was entirely for you; it warms my heart that you noticed.

Yes, it was probably Boras, but when your chief of staff (or whover, 1970's history nerds) breaks into the other party's headquarters on your behald, you are the one who resigns from office in disgrace, even though you weren't the one tiptoeing around the Watergate at 3:00 a.m.