Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
I realize that the last thing regular Bronx Banter readers probably need is another Alex Rodriguez article, but there are two that I wanted to share with you. The first, by Eric Neel, is up on ESPN today. Neel explores what I've been talking about all year--how Rodriguez's vulnerabilites actually make him approachable. Rodriguez, Neel writes:
...Comes off as this odd blend of superstar talent and confidence, packaged with common-guy uncertainty and instability. He's someone we have to think about. What makes him tick? How's he holding up? Is being in the fishbowl getting to him? Someone we have to engage on a kind of basic human level."It's complicated with A-Rod," says Steven Goldman, author of the Pinstriped Bible at YesNetwork.com. "It's about us, too — writers, fans, whomever — about how we respond to him. Can we accept him; can we empathize with the possibility that he has weaknesses just like any of us? Or do we reject him? Do we make fun of him and distance ourselves from him? It's like an after-school special almost."
Everyone says, "It's hard to have sympathy for a guy making $252 million." We struggle to see ourselves in someone so wealthy and so talent-rich. The guy is so good, and at such a young age, that we literally have no analogs for him in our experience. We don't relate. He strikes us as robotic, as impossibly skilled. We can't sympathize. But empathy is a different impulse.
Empathy means stepping outside ourselves and our conventions. We don't really know what kind of stress A-Rod feels, but empathy would have us wonder. Empathy would have us thinking about how "sensitive" might be the flip side of "passionate." Empathy also could mean imagining how opening up to the media, or being vulnerable to the people, wouldn't be the easiest thing in the world for a guy who has been under the microscope since he was a teenage kid growing up in Miami without a father. It would mean being emotionally entangled, responsible even.
Most of us reject that prospect. We run from it. We prefer the simple, familiar mechanics of winners and losers, heroes and villains, guys who have it and guys who don't. We say it's all about the rings. We say, as if we have no weaknesses ourselves, as if we've never shrunk from anything in our personal or professional lives, "suck it up" and "be a man." We demonize, then exile the "weak" guy. We treat him as if his sensitivities were contagious, as if he had cooties.
Bruce Weber, writing in the New York Times several weeks ago, echoes this line of thinking:
The sports talk shows relentlessly parsed Rodriguez's personality. What the heck is wrong with the guy? It must be in his mind, right? One television analyst (baseball analyst, that is), said Rodriguez was already a lost cause in New York, that it would be better both for him and the Yankees if he were traded to another city, where his delicate psyche could repair itself in an atmosphere unpoisoned by the home fans' disappointment. The former mayor of New York Rudolph W. Giuliani was moved to give an interview, counseling New Yorkers not to boo A-Rod because, he said, positive reinforcement is clearly what the man needs, and besides, it's in the best interest of the Yankees.Through it all, the lack of sympathy has been remarkable. People aren't exactly angry at the guy, but they seem to feel his troubles serve him right -- certainly not the general reaction to those in the throes of a breakdown.
His critics fixate on his failures: it was rare you heard that the same week he made the five errors, he also became the youngest man in the history of baseball to reach 450 home runs. Besides, hitting is more of a reactive enterprise than throwing; when a pitch is thrown you've got only a fraction of a second to swing the bat, and that's not enough time for a mental lapse. (Another bit of Berra wisdom: "You can't hit and think at the same time.") The point is that A-Rod's problems are not so easy to explain away with a definable diagnosis, as a mental tic that leaves him helpless, a condition you can look at and say, Huh, poor guy, it must be tough to live with something like that. Rather, he seems to be someone with a life, an attitude, a personality, demands, responsibilities, priorities and uncertainties, operating in an arena where success is far from a certainty. Someone, well, normal.
He turned 31 on Thursday; maybe it's a midlife crisis. In any case, unlike, say, Knoblauch, whose fits of poor throwing seemed alien, like an exotic disease he somehow unluckily caught, A-Rod is anything but strange. Maybe we're so caught up in his angst because we have met the All-Star and he is us.
We like our failures to be obvious--that is why it is easy to root for underdogs like Sal Fasano and Bubba Crosby. But when the guy who seemingly has everything--talent, money, good-looks, is also terribly vulnerable, it is a turn-off. Moreover, it brings out a viciousness in people that is almost palpable. What's up with that?
There's a significant undercurrent of dislike for JD Drew in the LA media and among some fans (tempered now since the Dodgers are winning.)
I just think that with the extremely large amount of media coverage of New York teams, any superstar is going to be scrutinized to within an inch of his life.
Then, there's the case of Philadelphia, which is sui generis.
Is ARod to blame for this? Of course not, but he's the only one out there operating in plain view.
In a sport so team-centric, how can he not be rejected? Especially when he's never propelled any of his teams to the top.
Its precisely his flaws that do make me like him. Sure he's great, but he's human and you can see him trying so hard. I don't understand why people dislike him for this, I really don't. Maybe I just prefer a superhero with some flaws.
I'm a huge Allen Iverson fan and it makes me crazy how so many people in and out of Philly dislike him and rip him for all sorts of ridiculous reasons. The guy is a warrior on the court and it isn't enough.
In the end all, A-Rod can do is what A.I. does which is grow some thicker skin, call out the media and fans on occasion to release some steam, live his life, go out there and play hard.
These guys are just lucky that they have a skill that allows them, their familes and friends to live a comfortable life financially.
The fans reaction to A-Rod is pure sadism and scapegoating.
Scapegoating in that this booing was at its peak in June when the Yankees were well out of the wild card and several games out of first place in the AL East. Fans are of course on the whole pretty powerless. There was a felling of frustration, their beloved team after a decade of overwhelming sucess were looking at failure, what can you do blame injuries, bad luck, tough competition, weak back end of rotation, nothing tangible to boo in that crowd. Except the guy batting cleanup having a decent year, not the great years you expect, the guy making all of the money looking so polished while you were so miserable. Classic scapegoat.
Sadism in that it is just making another person miserable to the point that it was affecting his game detrimentally (throwing errors, striking out in the clutch), which would make the Yankees less likely to win which should have made the Yankee fans even more unhappy. So a rational human being would say, let me stop this negative behavior, I'd like to help make this guy's problems disappear, which make the Yanks more likely to win, which should make me happier. However the sadist in them overcomes the rational side of them, they are happy being miserable. The pleasure they get in making this guy miserable far outweighs the pain they feel in the Yankees losing.
But before I go, I'd like to point out that I recently learned that Babe Ruth received somewhat similar treatment to A-Rod back in the day - highest paid player, booed if he didn't homer everytime up, etc etc.
Something tells me that, like Ruth, history will judge A-Rod a lot more kindly than the "what have you done for us lately" detractors of the moment.
Though there weren't any blogs around during the 1920s, I can only imagine if there were... despite slugging 4 home runs and putting up a .300/.548/.900 line in the 1926 World Series, a few members of Bronx Banter would blame the series loss to the Cardinals on Ruth's caught stealing to end game 7.
ESPN Classic also had a piece on Mickey Mantle. They interviewed one sportswriter who said something along the lines of:
Mickey was booed first for not being DiMaggio, something he never claimed to be. Then he was booed for not winning the Triple Crown every year. Then he was booed for being a draft dodger when his knees kept him out of the war. Then he was booed because it just became the thing to do. It wasn't until '61 that he was routinely cheered for at Yankee Stadium.
That's a lot of years of being booed, makes A-Rod's being booed for striking out a few times seem almost gentle in comparison.
There is much to like about A-Rod. He is a family man with a lovely wife and daughter. He seems to live a clean lifestyle; no mystery apologies regarding drug use/abuse.
He has been outspoken on the issue of mental health. It is an issue where few atheletes dare to go.
He is also a true New Yorker. In a city packed with neurotic people, the man has 3 shrinks!
Just think:
Should Stengel have stayed with Ralph Terry in Game 7? Once again, poor BP management by Stengel costs us the world series. I love Stengel's personality and the way he handles the tough NY media, but his in game tactics are just costing this team games and in this case the world series.
We could have a veritable, second guessing, blogging free for all :).
BAL .143 BA/.219 OBP/.143 SLG/.362 OPS
BOS .222 BA/.317 OBP/.472 SLG/.789 OPS
TOR .222 BA/.352 OBP/.489 SLG/.841 OPS
TAM .171 BA/.320 OBP/.195 SLG/.515 OPS
This might explain some of the boos.
(Dramatic Pause)
A MONTH!!!!!!!
That's 4 million a year in PENSION. That's $4 million a year to do nothing. Back off A-Rod already.
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