only didn't outright demand a trade because he had no leg to stand on. i guess you don't remember the problems between him and schowalter, which were clearly a function of arod pouting about being stuck on the only team stupid enough to pay him what he wanted.

Billy 's nailed what it is about A-Rod that's always bugged me. It's that he says what he thinks people wants to hear in interviews instead of being truthful. He sounds like a self-absorbed twat trying to be diplomatic in order to make himself look reasonable. But there have been several games where I was watching and A-Rod's press comments following those games bear no resemblance to the way the plays actually unfolded.

He's not the only one that does this and there are several Red Sox who do the same thing. But he's one of the highest paid of the Pouty Pampered.

I guess when he delivers like he did last night it explains why people put up with him.

The White Sox haven't played the Yankees yet.

But if he had, DHRJericho would've flipped out.

The bottom line is all this criticism is generated by a bunch of Redsox - A TEAM THAT TRIED TO TRADE FOR HIM BEFORE THE YANKEES. It was preordained that they and their fans would hate him when he became a Yankee instead.

I don't remember Shilling or Varitek being critical of A-Rod when he was about to become a Redsox.

From An AP story on Shilling's thoughts on the A-Rod trade:



Funny, I don't see anything there about what a clubhouse cancer A-Rod is.

np: Manu Chao

Funny thing is the Yankee announcers called bullshit on arod after his interview was over. Ken Singleton basically said there's no way he doesn't know how few players have hit 4 HRs in one game are, and how nice it would be to add your name to the list. And admitted that he would have totally been thinking about that himself.

A-Rod's full of shit for not admitting it, but the key is he stayed within himself having a good abat not trying to hard to get that 4th HR and getting a runscoring single instead.

And he got 10 RBI for my fantasy team.

my beloved sox baited the yankees into taking him on. if they really wanted him that badly, they wouldn't have let the deal fall apart over 4 million bucks.

That's a bit nit picky. I think a blind man could see how that was gonna all play out. I do agree that getting rid of him was the best thing the Rangers could've done.

I know you're defending your boy billy but you know that the economics of baseball are fucked and he's the shining (re:easy) target to blame.

Also, he's responsible for the worst commercial performance in TV history with the Daisy Fuentes commercial for something: "DAISY, YOU ARE SO BUSTED!!"

Now you're making A-Rod look like a model of sincerity.

It all worked out for you, I'll give you that. But the immediate aftermath of that trade attempt created clubhouse problems in the Redsox with a disgruntled Nomar and Ramierez that rivelled those of the Yankees when Reggie Jackson was alienating all his teammates and Cliff Johnson was beating up Rich Gossage.

Winning's a good cure for chemistry problems though. It will be interesting to see what happens if Redsox pitching falls short this year. I wouldn't be surprised to see people telling Millar to shut the fuck up and Damon to cut his goddamn hair (I personally love it though).

np: Manu Chao

I agree that its a rediculous contract. I blame Hicks for offering it though, not A-Rod for agreeing to it.

You won't see me turning down $25MM a year that's for sure.

That said, there's a lot of crazy contracts I'd put as worse than his. He's at least one of the top top players in the game. What about Darren Dreifort or Chan Ho Park for example. Granted they are about half of A-Rod's in size but A-Rod was providing them with MVP calibur years. Those guys haven't done shit to justify their contracts.

I believe it was just Nomar who was disgruntled. If Manny was mad about it, he sure didn't show or admit to it.

I didn't mean the trade so much for Manny but I thought he took it as a personal insult when they put him on waivers, and made a big deal about it. Its been a while though and my source would have been the NY press so they could have made a bigger deal out of it than the issue deserved.

Bitch was a solo shot from the home-run cycle... He should have gone for it. Should have hacked away. Like Kingman.

Sacrifice.

Yeah I don't think he really mentioned anything about that other than something like "eh, that's baseball man."

I've been trying to watch the Yankees-Angels game but once again I just can't handle how boring, mumbly, self-important, misinformed and irritating the ESPN announcers are. How does this network survive?

izza good tune

hard to be jealous with a benner hanging on the cf flagpole in the friendly fens.

He just hit another

fucker

A-Rod is like Barry Bonds. The only thing that surpasses his enormous talent is the amount of hatred his peers hold for him. Opponents and teammates (both current and former) alike loathe him. Every single one of them. No exception. Wouldn't spit on him if he were on fire. It has nothing to do with him being a Yankee. It has everything to do with him being an asshole. The guy is just flat-out insufferable to anyone who has ever come in contact with him. He still puts up the phony-baloney veneer of approachability/likability to the press and general public, but he will eventually stop even trying to fool people...just like Barry.

I'll never, ever argue the guy's talent. He's a beast with the bat, and a wizard with the glove. He's got a rocket for an arm and winged feet. But he's all about Alex. Not a team player whatsoever, and definitely the most lethal strain of clubhouse poison. The fact that the Rangers and Yankees have been headed in opposite directions since the trade is no coincidence.