Monstrous ego is A-Rod's best bud
12/26/2000
Codding Home / Sports Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
So I'm bopping around on the Internet the other day, feeling good because I finally thought I'd recovered from the whole A-Rod shock. Admittedly, $252 million still seemed like an awful lot of money to me (because it is), but I had eventually passed through the proper stages: Denial ("No way, Tom Hicks isn't that stupid."); anger ("How could Hicks be so *#@!*$ stupid?"); depression ("Sigh, I can't believe Hicks is that stupid... . Where's my Haagen-Dazs?"); and, finally, acceptance ("I guess Hicks really is that stupid."). All in all, it was a natural healing process and I was ready to move on.
But then I read this headline on ESPN.com : "Money talks: A-Rod says his record salary looks safe." Excuse me? "... looks safe"? What the hell does that mean? I could already hear my therapist calmly reminding me to take long, deep breaths. His "record salary looks safe," as if this whole process was some sort of distorted contest in Alex Rodriguez's mind. I was already so worked up before even clicking on the link to the actual story that I decided to skip it. Remember, I had moved on.
But eventually, my curiosity - not to mention the little journalist inside - finally got the best of me, so I went back to take a look at the entire story. In retrospect, I'm glad I did. Now, I finally understand just what kind of person Alex Rodriguez really is.
A-Rod had plenty to say on The Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio, but I'll only give the low-lights. Apparently, the question of what player would eventually top the $252 million contract was raised on Patrick's show and the 25-year-old shortstop offered up Boston pitcher Pedro Martinez and Atlanta CF Andruw Jones. Then he took it even further: "I don't know who it's going to be. The 252 is going to be hard to break because of my age and my talent at such a young age."
Yes, young Alex, we all know how talented you are and we all realize you're only 25 years old. But you don't have to sell yourself any longer - your agent, Scott Boras, shoved those facts down our collective throats for weeks. From that quote alone, it sounds as though A-Rod truly believes his talent level will never be equaled by another player in baseball history. Excuse me for drawing such wild conclusions from a mere two-sentence quote, but if he didn't mean to sound so arrogant, he failed miserably. It's almost like Rodriguez was reading straight from a cue card prepared by Boras before the show... or from the presentations Boras delivered to interested teams throughout baseball's winter meetings.
Then to make matters worse, Rodriguez continued by stating: "Even a guy like Derek (Jeter), it's going to be hard for him to break that because he just doesn't do the power numbers and defensively he doesn't do all those things... . He might get 180." Nothing like discretely throwing pot shots at one of your "close" friends, huh? You're right, Alex, Jeter may not have the power to hit 40+ homers a season, but you'll have to excuse him. Between winning four of the last five World Series titles, not to mention the respect and admiration of players, coaches and fans nationwide, he couldn't find the time to worry about hitting meaningless bombs. Instead, Jeter's only notched 813 hits in his last four seasons, while his .322 career batting average and .394 career OB% doesn't even begin to compare to your .309 average and .374 OB%, huh? I guess those 100 or so more home runs you've hit in your career wipes out Jeter's four rings and a World Series MVP. My mistake.
Or how about this classic, taken from the same interview: "I've been grossly underpaid for the last four years and I've never said a word because in reality, I'm overpaid." Aside from the glaring contradiction in that quote, using the term "underpaid" in regards to baseball is bad enough, but any professional athlete today saying he's "grossly underpaid" is insulting. A-Rod's four-year, $10.6 million contract with the Mariners may not compare to the pot of gold the Rangers threw at him, but you can bet I'd take $2.5 million to play ball everyday. Where does this guy find the nerve to even suggest, on a national platform, that he was underpaid? Teachers are underpaid. Medical researchers are underpaid. Sportswriters are underpaid (just go with it). A Major League shortstop -- I don't care if you're Mike "Two Homer" Benjamin - is not underpaid, and just suggesting that makes A-Rod, in my eyes, the kind of money-loving, self-centered player every Mariners fan claims he was when he bailed on an ALCS team.
There were a few more gems throughout the show's transcript ("The only thing I feel bad about is the fans, and I want to make sure they can afford to come to the game. That situation is out of my control." Uh-huh, as if that GNP you call your salary won't have an effect on ticket prices in Texas for the next decade.), but at least A-Rod tried to inject some humor into an otherwise irritating interview by saying he feels the Rangers are "two pitchers away from being maybe the best team in baseball." Perhaps, but they'd have to be two damn good pitchers, and you can bet the Red Sox and Diamondbacks aren't looking to trade Pedro or Randy Johnson anytime soon.
So, Alex, start counting your sickening mound of money and dreaming of that elusive World Series ring. With all that cash, maybe your buddy in New York will let you rent one of his four rings for the weekend - chances are he'll have another one at the end of the 2001 season, but at least you'll hit a few more homers.
In the Bullz-Eye
The New Orleans Saints. Going into last week's NFL action, the Rams, last year's Super Bowl champs, needed to win a very tough game on the road against the division champion Saints and then hope the Lions would also blow an easy game to the 4-11 Bears in Detroit. That was the only way Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk and the rest of the Bob-n-Weavers would see the postseason this year. Long shot, right? You can bet everyone in football (outside of St. Louis, of course) was rooting for the Saints to pull off the win, but no team in the NFL wanted that more than the Saints because, with the Rams in fact winning the game and the Lions somehow blowing theirs, the extremely dangerous Rams, a team that everyone else in the playoffs is deathly afraid of facing in a postseason game, is now heading to New Orleans to face the Saints in the opening round this Saturday. Fate rears her ugly face again.