More drama finds A-Rod
Split with wife latest headline grabber
NEW YORK — The Yankees are stuck with this through the 2017 season, stuck with Alex Rodriguez being Alex Rodriguez. It means nine more years of otherworldly athletic skill, and nine more years of aliens-abduct-A-Rod headlines in the tabloid press.
Can the Yankees win a championship with the ultimate state-of-me superstar as the face of the cause, the heartbeat of a franchise that won four titles on a foundation of selflessness built around Joe Torre and the all-for-one, one-for- all winners in his clubhouse?
Better question: Can they even make the playoffs in a year when Rodriguez spends more time resurrecting Madonna’s career than Joe Girardi’s?
Before he made a mockery of Tim Wakefield’s knuckleball in the second inning Sunday night, tying Mickey Mantle on the all-time homer list with his 536th, A-Rod caught nothing but high heat from his wife, Cynthia, who filed for divorce Monday in Miami’s Dade County Family Court.
Cynthia is citing “emotional abandonment” and a “long period of infidelity on the part of Mr. Rodriguez, an All-Star baseball player for the New York Yankees,” according to KTRK-TV in Houston, the channel (13) that has A-Rod’s number in every literal and figurative way.
The station quoted C-Rod’s Houston-based attorney as saying the “relationship with Madonna was the final straw for Mrs. Rodriguez,” who apparently saw last year’s photos of her husband in the late-night company of a far less conspicuous blonde as the second- to-last straw.
Whatever. On the day he became an All-Star for the 12th time, and on the night he was granted a curtain call for matching the mighty Mick, Rodriguez was baseball’s reigning drama queen for all the wrong reasons.
Brainwashed today, liberated from Madonna’s spell tomorrow. It’s never going to change for A-Rod. Just when observers thought he had followed Derek Jeter’s lead and mastered the art of high-profile, low-maintenance living in New York, Rodriguez blew up that myth faster than he sent Wakefield’s knuckler into the left field seats.
“I don’t think it has an impact on Alex,” Brian Cashman said. “There’s always something off the field that consumes the tabloids now and then and yet he still performs on the field.”
But does A-Rod being A-Rod alter the team dynamic in a negative way? Is the magnitude of A-Rod an anchor that has weighed down the Yanks from 2004 to here?
“I don’t think those distractions have any impact on the team,” Cashman maintained. “When the first pitch is thrown, none of that stuff has any impact on whether we win or lose games. The field is a sanctuary for most players.”
At a brief pre-game news conference, it was requested only baseball questions be asked. To punctuate an otherwise humble first response about his first All-Star Game and the reverence he felt for Cal Ripken Jr., A-Rod allowed that “to be selected as the No. 1 vote-getter is nice.”
He received 3,934,518 online votes, not that A-Rod was counting, of course.
All over the world they’re talking less about Rodriguez’s skill and more about Madonna, C-Rod, Lenny Kravitz and a whole lot of things the Yankees aren’t paying $275 million for.
“If a feeding frenzy takes place,” Cashman said, “it’s going to take place whether I would like it to or not.”
Cashman wouldn’t say if he’s talked marriage and infidelity with his third baseman, but did offer that he’s in regular contact with his players about off-the-field issues. Last year, the general manager called in Rodriguez and his wife to reprimand Cynthia for showing up at a game in a shirt carrying a profane message.
Cashman was asked if he thought it possible that A-Rod could go an entire season without creating a single front-page stir.
“It certainly hasn’t happened yet,” he said.
It certainly won’t happen during the duration of Rodriguez’s 10-year contract. New stadium, old story. Divas, divorces, depositions, alleged dalliances to be named later, they’re all part of a deal that contains no employer opt-out.
For another nine years and change, the Yankees will have to live with A-Rod’s talent for hitting a ball and making a mess.
Tonight the Yankees begin a two-game series with the division-leading Tampa Bay Rays (7 p. m., YES), who are 8z games ahead of New York in the standings.
