A-Rod, Yanks plague M's

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Monday, February 16, 2004

A-Rod, Yanks plague M's

By ART THIEL
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST

It's as if Major League Baseball is one giant cruise-ship party sickened by a new virus -- arodii steinbrennarius.

From the perspective of the Northwest, there appears no antidote. The most virulent bug has linked with the most incurable disease. How did the Book of Revelations not list this plague?

For most Mariners fans, nausea is in a dead heat with anger over the acquisition of Alex Rodriguez by the New York Yankees. A fast-closing third symptom is helplessness.

Suddenly, Mariners fans are Don Zimmer, and the baseball world is Pedro Martinez.

Still, while there appears no cure, there are different stages of denial that are worthy of consideration during breaks between retches.

First, there are fans worse off. Consider the followers of the Texas Rangers. They see the best player in baseball, the reigning Most Valuable Player, traded for what was identified in the World Series press box as probably the worst good player in baseball.

Yes, Alfonso Soriano is the only player besides Willie Mays and Bobby Bonds to have consecutive seasons with at least 35 homers and 35 stolen bases. But in 52 at-bats in the American League Championship Series and the World Series, Soriano struck out 20 times and hit less than .200. He made Mike Cameron's strike-zone judgment look like Rod Carew's. And Soriano's a mediocre glove man who might wind up butchering center field for the Rangers.

On top of that, the Rangers need another hitter like Ted Koppel needs more hair. The breadth of team owner Tom Hicks' ignorance was apparent when he paid Rodriguez the equivalent of Brazil to leave Seattle. Now, the depth of his foolishness is apparent.

PITCHING, Tom. PITCHING. Or don't the Texas newspapers have upper-case letters?

Then there's the poor folks in New England, where they have been pining for a Red Sox championship since before Ted Kennedy answered to the nickname, "Slim." Boston management labored feverishly this winter trying to get Rodriguez, only to be denied, and now must watch as he is snatched by the hated rival.

Not only did Yankees third baseman Aaron Boone do the Red Sox rotten with his decisive homer in the final game of the ALCS, he did them dirtier in the off-season by blowing out his knee playing hoops, creating the opening for A-Rod to play third base instead of shortstop. That's the weirdest combo of punches since the second Clay-Liston fight. (Note to the Mariners' Bret Boone: When you're in Beantown, tell them you're related to Pat and Debby Boone.)

Apart from the intense pockets of baseball contempt, there are some small virtues that may accrue from this deal.

In Seattle, there will be a renewal of the civic therapy that occurred whenever Rodriguez stepped into the batter's box. The rage was fading last year, but now will be revived with the gusto reserved for those rare moments when vileness joins villainy somewhere in life other than the WWE.

The only problem is that while the Rangers were scheduled to play 10 times in Seattle, the Yanks have only six appearances. Much like the team, Mariners fans are going to have to pick up the intensity.

The news is also good for President Bush, the former Rangers managing director. Not only is his old team starting to crawl out from the huge mistake, he's been supplanted, at least temporarily, as the biggest Texas whopper-teller in pop culture.

Less than three weeks ago, Rodriguez was busy re-embracing his Rangers teammates and management after failing in his attempt to force himself to Boston.

"I definitely think I'm going to be here for a long time," said Rodriguez, who went on to praise the future of the organization, of which he was again thrilled to be a part. He also said he believed Pete Rose meant to tell everyone he bet on baseball, but Pete just forgot.

The biggest reason for optimism is that the deal isn't going to mean a championship for the Yankees.

Why? Because they've done the same sort of forehead-slapping stunt the past three off-seasons, and it proved futile each time.

Whether it was Mike Mussina or Jason Giambi or Hideki Matsui, the Yankees have seen their marquee acquisitions fail to get them back to the top. Arizona outpitched the Yanks in 2001, Anaheim bounced them in the '02 playoffs, and Florida watched as they broke down the past October. Failing once for the Yankees is an accident, twice is freakish, but three establishes an incontrovertible trend. God may not be a Yankees-hater, but there is evidence of genuine dislike.

Besides, the entire AL East, where the Yankees play most of their games, has beefed up, including Baltimore and Tampa Bay. The Yankees also figure to break down internally. Manager Joe Torre has about had it with George Steinbrenner's meddling, new pitcher Kevin Brown will prove an injury prone bust, and the warranty on reliever Mariano Rivera's arm expires soon.

Can you imagine what the New York tabloids will do with the Rodriguez-Derek Jeter "friendship"? By the All-Star break, there will be so much contempt that Dr. Phil will be the new bench coach in charge of mediation.

Rodriguez didn't much care to share the spotlight in Seattle with Randy Johnson and Ken Griffey Jr. He had the stage to himself in Texas, and he still got the dubious eye from half the clubhouse. And now the best shortstop in the game is moving to third base to accommodate Jeter, one of the more limited shortstops? That's going to last until Jeter's first error prompts the tabloids to call for a position switch.

OK, maybe some of these assumptions are a bit of a stretch. Rodriguez is, after all, the game's best player, who led the AL in home runs the past three seasons.

But it's only February, when no forecaster is wrong. Besides, the Mariners still haven't deployed their payroll millions from the departure of Kazuhiro Sasaki.

Wait until they go deep into their plan to bring back former Mariners. By July, all of baseball will be talking about Seattle's clever counterpunch with Al Martin.

WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING

"And in related baseball news, the Yankees were just given the rights to Ted Williams' frozen head. On behalf of everyone in the league, let me give Rangers owner Tom Hicks a big Bronx cheer for dealing Alex Rodriguez to the Yankees. There are eight kinds of idiots in the world, but you just won the crown, Tommy. You are going to pay the Yankees $67 million to put the league's best player in their lineup."

-- Jim Caple, ESPN.com columnist

"You know, George Steinbrenner is the center of evil in the universe. There's no question about that."

-- Ben Affleck, actor and Red Sox fan

"It's another challenge, but after 85 years, did any of you (Red Sox fans) think that getting over this final hurdle and winning it all was gonna be a cakewalk? No, it'll be more fun this way. So let's move on, let whatever happens happen, and focus on the fact that the best Boston Red Sox team in the last 100 years takes the field in seven days for a ride that is guaranteed to be the most memorable of any of our lives over the next eight months."

-- Curt Schilling, Red Sox pitcher

"It's clearly a blow. A-Rod's an exceptional player. Any team would be stronger for getting him. There comes a time when you have to tip your cap to your adversary. Money talks. It is a bit of a shock to the system. But we've been trying to say we play the game in the field, not during the winter. One thing, I'll pay to see these teams go toe to toe."

-- Larry Lucchino, Red Sox president [Note: His title was incorrect in the original version of this item]

"The fact that Rodriguez has agreed to play third base in New York underscores two things: how badly he wants to play for a contender and how hollow his words have been this winter about being satisfied to remain in Texas. Rodriguez, 28, is not getting any younger, and it's pretty clear his career path had reached a fork in the road. That the losing and the differences with manager Buck Showalter were threatening to sap Rodriguez's spirits became abundantly clear this winter."

-- Scott Miller, CBS Sportsline columnist

"We had every opportunity to get him -- a number of times -- but we didn't. And it's even more upsetting to know that he was willing to switch positions, and we could have kept Nomar, too."

-- Derek Lowe, Red Sox pitcher

"A-Rod is a big, big get for the Yankees. Listen, before this I thought the Red Sox had the best offseason of any team in the league. Acquiring Schilling and (pitcher Keith) Foulke are two gigantic moves. But now you're talking about one of the top one or two players in the game. From our point of view, it doesn't change much. We thought it would be Boston and New York that we had to find a way to beat. And that's still the same climb for us. You've got a team spending, what, $200 million? Another team that's $125 million? It seems the Red Sox do have a limit. But it just looks like the Yankees have no limits."

-- J.P. Ricciardi, Toronto Blue Jays GM

"The Yankee payroll could exceed $200 million in 2004. It could be nearly seven times as high as, say, the Devil Rays. How are small-market teams supposed to compete? OK, OK, so the Yankees can afford $200 million, and another, say, $70 million in luxury tax and revenue sharing, but it just doesn't seem right that whatever they want, they get. They now have four players -- Rodriguez, Kevin Brown, Jason Giambi and Derek Jeter -- who have $100 million contracts. No team has ever won a World Series with a player who has a $100 million contract. No team has ever had four such guys."

-- Tim Kurkjian, ESPN.com columnist

"Not only are Steinbrenner's Yankees, the payroll pigs of all time, about to have a $200 million payroll, there are four players on it whose original contracts were worth more than $100 million: Rodriguez, Derek Jeter, Jason Giambi, Kevin Brown. The Yankees do this because they believe they are getting the closest thing we may ever see to a righthanded Ruth. Ruth came to New York and became their No. 3. Now they get No. 3 of the Texas Rangers, so desperate to get out of Texas that he agrees to move to third base. For now."

-- Mike Lupica, N.Y. Daily News columnist

"If A-Rod thrives in New York, the Red Sox will be forever second-guessed for not pulling the trigger on a trade with Texas -- as they have been second-guessed for more than three-quarters of a century for dealing Babe Ruth. If Rodriguez continues his current rate of production, the Red Sox may be guilty of squandering two of the four greatest home run hitters in history. Everything the Red Sox do this season -- and everything they don't do -- will be viewed through an A-Rod prism, and an ownership which had built enormous credibility with Boston fans could lose all of it if the Yankees win."

-- Buster Olney, ESPN.com columnist

P-I columnist Art Thiel can be reached at 206-448-8135 or artthiel@seattlepi.com

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