Alex Rodriguez cheated. Took the easy way. Lied. And if he really does have faith, as he said after the Red Sox game Sunday, he knows he’s right out of Pinocchio.
His lawyer, however, appears to have no idea what a gigantic donkey he himself is.
To recap —
Ryan Dempster missed Rodriguez with his first try, plonking him with his second — in the same at bat. He was clearly throwing at him, and he should have been ejected.
Later, Rodriguez helped his team win with an RBI groundout and a colossal home run that, in baseball parlance, means screw you.
The next day Major League Baseball said essentially the same thing to Rodriguez lackey and lawyer, Joe Tacopina.
I say these — including the part about tossing Dempster — as a Sox fan. Hate the Yankees. And based on, oh, every single one of these types of things that get played out in the media every time for like forever, Rodriguez did what MLB said he did, and is what he is demonstrating himself to be, every time he opens his mouth.
And then his lawyer said, “I can’t talk about stuff” because of confidentiality agreements.
This is the guy who kills his parents and pleads for the court’s mercy because he’s an orphan. Because there is a way — assuming into account all possible legalities and technicalities — for everyone to let Rodriguez says publicly as much as he likes. As he does now.
Whatever it would take, whichever side would have to waive whatever dealios, there is a way.
Yahoo!’s Tim Brown says simply, and to both parties, bring it.
[Brown, by the way, is the guy to read on this. He writes about baseball the way Rod Carew or Tony Gwynn played it: with elegance and class, making contact nearly every time, and getting tons of hits. Think Ichiro. Jeff Passan writes like my dog plays baseball. But I digress.]
The one corrective I suggest is that the bit from the lawyer wasn’t even good enough to be a bluff. If he tried it in an actual poker game it would technically be known as bullshit.
Watching Rodriguez jerk his team around — right, they don’t want you to play — helps me hate them a little less.
A little.
Even more, I hope my Red Sox don’t do that again. Though we know it will come back on them, next time they play the Evil Empire.
Instead, I hope they take my wife’s advice, and walk Rodriguez every time he’s up. She says every team should.
Hitting him is basic and boring, not to mention lying, cheating, and taking the easy way. Instead, refuse to pitch to him. Walk him every time. If he insists he “just wants to play” … OK let him. His on-base percentage will go through the roof.
But he won’t hit another home run, not ever.
And his lawyer could stop braying to all fields.
Not that he would.
Note: MLB fined and suspended Ryan Dempster, and
Joe Girardi was fined, for their parts in Sunday’s events.