Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
The details still need to be worked out, but it looks as if Alex Rodriguez is coming back to the Yankees, to the tune of 10 years, $275 million. Here is the outline of the deal, and the first look into how it all went down.
The story was released tonight shortly after the Barry Bonds indictment story had a good hour of the newscyle headlines. Many Yankee fans that I spoke with today were unhappy to hear that Rodriguez was coming back, even if some of them softened their stance after learning that Rodriguez approached the Yankees without his agent, Scott Boras. I assume even more will stop worrying and learn to love the bomb when he's knocking in 40 dingers a year. Still, my initial feeling was that Rodriguez will have to be part of a World Series winner or approach Barry Bonds' home run record before he is ever truly embraced by the baseball public, let alone Yankee fans.
Only Bonds and Boras getting flogged could possibly make Rodriguez look okay in comparison, and guess what? It happened. Now, Boras takes a massive "L" and Bonds is really in the soup. Rodriguez? He's only about to sign the biggest contract in baseball history...for the second time. How you like me now, indeed.
I don't think Rodriguez is that bad--he's just a bit of a fink that's all. He's like the kid you knew when you were growing up, where'd you's say, "Mattingly hit .340 last year," and he'd go, "No, he hit .343." If you gave a buck to a Salvation Army guy on the street, he'd go to the ATM and give the guy a twenty, is how a friend put it. He tries to be a goody-goody. It's a different kind of arrogance than Bonds. (I don't think he has the stones to be like Bonds.)
He's already a Hall of Famer six ways to Sunday, and he's only 32. He always hustles. I'm eager to keep watching him play for the Yanks. So he's not perfect, he's got two left feet when it comes to handling things. He's like a manicured, movie-star/jock version of Michael Scott--he always says the wrong thing. He's not as funny, but he's often just as painful. And like Scott, he just wants to be loved. In a strange way, I find his A-Rodness endearing, even if it is annoying. So, he's meshugenah? Since when doesn't that play in New York?
I don't share an apartment with the guy and I don't commute to work with him (unfortunately). I just have to watch him hit baseballs and catch baseballs. He does that pretty decent. I'm thrilled.
Steinbrenner said he thinks that had Rodriguez tested the free-agent market, he would have gotten a more lucrative contract and cited the interest of the Los Angeles Dodgers, led by new manager Joe Torre, and perhaps other teams.
"There are a few cynics who say, 'Well he really couldn't get this there,'" Steinbrenner said. "Trust me, he would have gotten probably more. He is making a sacrifice to be a Yankee, there's no question. ... He showed what was really in his heart and what he really wanted."
Now that he's staying with the Yankees, will A-Rod get a Yankeeography on YES?
"Well, we'll see," Steinbrenner said, chuckling.
awww ... hank's a big softy after all, just like his old man ...
Ha ha hahah a!
I was exactly that kid. I was such a stat-head in my youth, I could have told you probably the precise averages of about half the league or more in any given year.
All that strat-o-matic, microleague, etc.
I meant no finkitude by it, though, just wanted the record straight. :)
In any event, I made my peace with Alex during last season, so I'm happy to have him back.
I love every aspect of his game except the fact that he really does seem to dread the Big Spot. But he really does hustle, really wants to win, plays his ass off, plays a mean, but mean fucking third-base and has uncanny instincts running around the bags.
Yeah, yeah, he hits the ball a long way too.
This certainly improves our chances to be competitive next season, eh?
Happy trails to the fat kid; I'm so glad we didn't have to go down that past. Better to stick with the monster you know.
Oh, and a word of advice to Alex: DON'T FORGET ABOUT YOUR HEADPHONES!
Great reference, Alex. (Even though the nitpicker in me says it should be "stop worrying..."
The jernt is lousy with A-Rods!
Damn.
I don't love the guy. But it sure did suck when we figured we'd just lost the best player in baseball and how the f* were we going to replace him?
Whew.
Ted Williams: Boston
Alex Rodriguez: New York
Both the most talented players of their time, both reviled by the press in their home town. I bet Arod's legacy in NYC will be as golden as Williams', who became loved here in Boston after his retirement.
Let's hope it's true only for achievement at the plate, not for # of WS titles.
Imagine having John Mallory and Gerald Cardinale as your factotums!
"Whew" indeed.
Actually, that's basically how I feel. Not joyous or psyched or anything, just relieved.
Big problem solved.
Nevertheless, you got me.
Come on, Captain, do the right thing.
I can understand be weary about the personality, but just root for the front of the uniform.
15 Yeah that's basically how I feel too. And agree with your assessment in 10 but would amend it slightly - to me he doesn't so much dread the big spot as it is another example where he is trying too hard (to be the "hero", to be liked, to be the best). It's cliche, but people's best characteristics are also their worst - Arod tries too hard - that's why he's one of the best baseball players of his generation, but it also leads to a lot of his problems.
14 Yeah, I wish Goldman Sachs would broker something for me - but I liked the story yesterday on Yahoo that said it was the Modell's guy better.
Maybe Boston could grab Nicky Punto. That would be awesome.
And you're pokin at it, and pokin at it, but you're not hurting it. You're just kinda, batting around the bunny, ya know? And the Bunny's scared, Alex, scared of you, shivering, cause of the claws and the fangs.
You've got these fucking claws and fucking fangs, man! And you're looking at your claws and you're looking at your fangs and and you're thinking to yourself, you don't know what to do! "I don't know how to kill the bunny!" With this you don't know how to kill the bunny! You know, man?
You're like a bear, Alex.
A-Rod will look much better in his later days, as he starts to fade into the night. People will get some perspective on the player, and forget the flaws of the man. It's part of the great Yankee tradition of flawed and interesting characters who have done great things in our uniform. I'm ready to embrace him and watch him win 2-3 more MVP awards in pinstripes....and hopefully multiple titles.
HA!
Maybe there is something to doing it naturally and letting it them come at a normal pace.
24 I suspect the press back then would think there was something wrong with him for NOT having something wrong with him, compared to the others anyway.
I wanted Alex to move on to another team, but I always liked the guy. I think that some Yankee fans are terribly annoying and am surprised he wants to deal with them.
If I was the Yanks, I would offer 10/253. Is somebody going to top that?
Nice.
"ALEX RODRIGUEZ, A-ROD, IS NOW A YANKEE!!!!!! THE YANKEES DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT WHO'S GONNA PLAY THIRD BASE NEXT YEAR!!!! OH MY GOD, I JUST MIGHT EXPLODE RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW WITH THE ECSTASY OF IT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
:)
For me, I don't have to think about following some miserable Dodger's game where I hate the lack of a designated hitter and I can remain a content Yankee's fan with enthusiasm.
I'm fairly certain many Texas Ranger fans were gasping for breath when Tom Hicks signed A-Rod to that idiotic-for-its-time contract, but what could they do? What should they do, it's not their money anyway. Fans can only react, and that's the same here. Let it pass, because when the countdown reaches zero and Opening Day is here, A-Rod's at third, 50k+ fans are sitting in the stands at Yankee Stadium and we're following the game thread as usual.
I don't particularly care at this point who did what in this whole asinine dance-a-thon, as long as they all start sipping some STFU and focus on next season and the seasons after that. Who won? The sports pages, that's who. The rich get richer across the board and I'm getting up for work early tomorrow morning. I could care less about all this, but that would require some nominal effort on my part, so instead I'll take a sip and go to bed. G'nite!
No.
I think the dude might be going to jail. That might void his record. That means A-Rod would only have to break Hank Aaron's record to be the home run king.
What a weird turn of events for baseball today.
Fuh-reaky!
So no. Not at all.
I just don't see how it can work. MLB let this fiasco happen, they're kind of stuck with it now.
A record is, after all, a record of what actually happened. It records the hits, homers, etc. If you change the record of what Barry Bonds did, you make it inaccurate! Team RBI would no longer be the sum of the RBI of the players, the books would say that there were runs scored even though nobody scored them...
The record records what happened. It is for us the living, rather, to know and decide who cheated.
Bonds is the greatest player of our era, possibility ever and what has happened is a tragedy.
I just wonder, if Alex approaches 75 HR in a season, if the pitchers will pitch to him, to remove the taint from that record too.
The sad thing about Bonds is that he was already an all time great player before the steroids. 500 HR/500 SB would be an amazing stat on its own. Dumbass ego & arrogance.
64 great news. that makes me happy.
The one thing I HATE about this Arod deal is that it sounds like incentives are being built in that make him even LESS of a team player. Remember how clueless he looked at the plate when he was approaching 400 or whatever it was? Arod is certainly as vulnerable as anyone to getting tight.
Imagine a career of him tightly trying to hit dingers when a single wins it for the team. I hate incentivizing individual performance at the cost of team goals.
I read the Dayn Perry article and it made some good points but conveniently ignored the fact that the Yankees (had to) give 40 starts to a large group of scrubs/substandard SP's last year: Igawa, Clippard, DeSalvo, Rasner, Henn, Karstens, Pavano, Wright.
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