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Tuesday, February 17
A-Rod Spills His Guts (or does he?)
by
Lou Di Falco
on Tue 17 Feb 2009 02:26 PM EST
I'm watching this press conference with A-Rod and all I can think is I'm glad this guy is not on the Mets. He has a perfect opportunity to come clean yet he keeps digging himself further into a hole as question after question exposes that his story keeps on changing. As I wrote last week, I don't really think Steve Phillips could have known it at the time, but he was 100 percent correct in the fact that A-Rod creates a one and 24 situation in the clubhouse. Thursday, February 12
Shea-Rod
by
Lou Di Falco
on Thu 12 Feb 2009 08:54 AM EST
The last time the Mets made an appearance in the World Series was during the fall of 2000. They stormed their way through the NLDS and NLCS to get there losing only one game in each round. Both series were won on brilliant shutout performances by Bobby Jones and Mike Hampton respectively. The Mets clinched a trip to the World Series before the Yankees did. Many predicted the Mets would beat the Yankees in the first subway series since 1956. That was because from September on, the Mets played so much better than the Yankees. The Mets record for the season was 94-68 to the Yanks 87-74.
History proved that theory to be incorrect as the Yankees won their third World Series title in a row and celebrated on the Shea Stadium turf. Ouch, that was painful. How would the Mets be able to improve and get back to the series again the following season?
Rumors were running rampant that the Mets would soon be signing Alex Rodriguez who would be eligible to be a free agent two weeks after the 2000 World Series. This was not a new rumor. Earlier that season, the back page of the New York Post headlined "Shea-Rod" as the article inside the paper discussed the possibility of the superstar one day playing for the Mets, the team he rooted for as a kid. Many GMs felt that Shea would be A-Rod's destination when it was time for his first crack at free agency.
Coming off the disappointing series loss, Mets fans drooled at the idea of Rodriguez and Piazza in the middle of the lineup. The Mets were quiet about any such signing for fear of tampering. Steve Phillips, Mets GM at the time, publicly stated the Mets expected Ray Ordonez to be healthy by the opening of the '01 campaign. Ordonez had injured himself in 2000 and missed most of the season including the playoffs.
When it was time to negotiate for the slugger with agent Scott Boris at the 2000 winter meetings, the Mets led by Phillips went running scared. They had one meeting and immediately declared they were out of the A-Rod sweepstakes. Mets fans were shocked.
Some applauded Phillips' move on the basis that what Boris was asking for was outrageous. They wanted a contract worth over 200 million dollars with all kinds of amenities. Some were absurd like a tent at spring training to market all kinds of A-Rod memorabilia. Steve Phillips used the demands to explain his position that the club did not want a 24 and one scenario. What he meant was he did not want a situation where one player on the club would be treated so differently than everyone else. Phillips felt A-Rod would be too much of a distraction and could damage any type of chemistry a winning team requires.
Most fans and media were critical of the Mets. Phillips got a pass as blame was laid mostly on Fred Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday who were fifty percent owners at the time. Doubleday gets a lot of credit for the signing of Mike Piazza. However, when it came to A-Rod, Doubleday was quoted as saying "We already have a superstar."-meaning Piazza.
Rodriguez eventually signed that record deal with Texas and the Mets did not get back to the playoffs till 2006. By then, the cast of characters on the field and in the front office from 2000 were long gone.
In 2004, Mets fans squirmed when A-Rod became a Yankee. He was supposed to be a Met. After all, his nickname was supposed to have been Shea-Rod.
With the Yankees, A-Rod has put up tremendous numbers and he converted to a third baseman. He has won the MVP twice wearing pin stripes and he has hit a ton of home runs including his 500th. But yet, Yankee fans have just not taken to the guy. If he wasn't being photographed in Central Park with his shirt off, it was his wife wearing an obscenity laden tee-shirt into the Stadium. There is the alleged affairs with strippers and of course the relationship with Madonna. On the field, fans constantly moan that A-Rod cannot get it done in the post season. The perception is that A-Rod just compiles stats but he is not a winner. A-Rod is always in the paper. He is the number one New York sports whipping boy.
During the 2007 World Series, it was announced that Alex would opt out of his contract and seek to be a free agent. Major League Baseball and the New York media was furious that A-Rod and Boris would make the announcement during the series. The tabloids destroyed A-Rod with most fans saying good riddance. Then in an unusual twist, A-Rod broke ranks with Boris and begged Hank Steinbrenner to take him back, a move I believe was entirely orchestrated by Boris. Alex ended up getting a bigger contract than the one with Texas insuring he would be around for ten more seasons. Some Yankee fans were happy while others had wished he would just go away.
Now of course the latest. A-Rod did steroids from 2001-2003 by his own admission after a Sports Illustrated story broke the news last weekend. It's been non stop talk radio chatter since. Perhaps the greatest player in baseball had admitted to taking steroids while a Ranger during his three years there, one of them an MVP season.
I firmly believe that A-Rod is one of the greatest players that ever lived whether he took steroids or not. Yankee fans should ask where would the Yankees have been the last five seasons without him. Would they have even made the playoffs? But one thing is certain. Controversy has a way of showing up where Alex Rodriguez is.
It would be easy to say that Steve Phillips and the Mets were correct in not signing Alex Rodriguez. But the fact is the Mets did not sign him because they were scared of the money it would cost. Back then, the Mets did not think like a big market team. You cannot say the Mets were fine by not signing A-Rod. From 2001 through 2004, they were awful. Had they signed Rodriguez, there is no telling how the Mets would have fared during those years. But the one thing we can say in retrospect. The Yankees are really a 24 and one team.
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