Quotes of the Day
It's too bad that Alex Rodriguez doesn't want to become a politician. Because he's got it down. He memorizes personal details about everyone he meets. He keeps his wife Cynthia by his side. He laughs just a little too hard at his new teammates' jokes and holds his hand on their backs just a second too long at spring training — not because he doesn't know it will seem as if he's trying too hard but precisely because he wants it to. He speaks with the calm, earnest seriousness of a man who is 50 instead of 28. He slips your name, Anthony Robbins style, into every fourth sentence. When you ask him what he's looking forward to about living in New York City since his sensational trade to the Yankees in the off-season, he becomes Kennedyesque: "I want to see what I can give to the city." And after you interview him, he takes you outside the bay-side Tampa, Fla., house he has rented for spring training to speak to you off the record, though he has absolutely nothing off the record to say, just to make you feel special. Even Bill Clinton could learn from this guy.
"There are some people who say he seems syrupy. But that's who he is," says New York Yankees adviser Reggie Jackson, who has known Rodriguez since the young player was a 17-year-old Miami phenom who was already an expert networker. "A lot of that comes from the fact that he's so good-looking. He's almost pretty. He's got good health, a beautiful wife and $252 million. If they gave you $252 million, you'd be a pretty good guy. Life is a box of chocolates for him, except he knows what kind he's going to get every time."
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Well, maybe not this time. The best player in baseball — who, if his career lasts long enough, could break nearly every lifetime hitting record — is not only in his first big-market spotlight but also in a brand-new position. Since his job at shortstop was already taken by the beloved if defensively inferior Yankees captain Derek Jeter, ARod, desperate to abandon the train-wreck Texas Rangers, agreed to play third. More challenging than standing 40 feet closer to the batter will be playing in an atmosphere where anything other than a World Series victory is considered failure. If he can succeed at that, the sport's best player could finally give baseball a Michael Jordan — size star, as long as people outside New York City can celebrate another happy Yankee.
A-Rod will need all the political skill he can muster because he's the symbol of everything people love to hate about those rich Yankees. The Boston Red Sox, after their devastating play-off loss last fall, thought they had secured Rodriguez's services this winter. But negotiations stalled, and Yankees owner George Steinbrenner stole A-Rod as if he were a tire on a Volvo with Massachusetts plates sitting in the wrong part of the South Bronx. And while he's assured of being hated in every other stadium, success in the Bronx isn't a given. "New York is scary," says Rodriguez. "It's an enormous challenge." He's not just tempering expectations. High-caliber athletes such as Kenny Rogers, Ed Whitson and Jeff Weaver have floundered under the pressure of New York City. "A lot of players think they want to come here, and then they get here and whoa — they can't handle the scrutiny, and they pull back," says Yankees bench coach Willie Randolph, who notes that ARod has been peppering him with questions about New York for six years.
The first potential trap for ARod is his relationship with Jeter, with whom he'll have to share attention, already Topic A among New York City's sports press. The two have known each other since their teens, but their relationship was strained after an Esquire story in which A-Rod said that, unlike him, Jeter didn't have to carry the burden of being the toughest out in his lineup. Jeter says that the two are friends and that, freed from the public, A-Rod is less uptight. "He fooled you with that one. He's not all that serious," Jeter says.
If so, he puts on a great game. For a 28-year-old, A-Rod comes off as a guy who's lying to impress a date's dad. He collects art (Chagall, Picasso, Monet and Renoir are favorites because "I don't like contemporary art"), can't dance, lists Frank Sinatra as his favorite musician and takes a break every night with friends and family for Breyers Cookies & Cream in the living room. Clay Aiken would get bored of this guy. Teammate Jason Giambi describes Rodriguez in a way that makes him seem programmed. "I've worked out with Tiger Woods in rehab for my knee this winter, and he and ARod are very similar," says Giambi. "These guys have been planning what they want from their lives since they were young kids. They're single-minded in their pursuit of being the best players in their game." Tom Hicks, the Texas Rangers owner, says maturity was a major reason he signed A-Rod to a 10-year contract, though the player isn't a total robot. "Every so often he does something appropriate for a 28-year-old guy, and you say, 'Oh, yeah, he's a young guy,'" Hicks says. "Nothing I'd want to go on the record about."
The contract Hicks signed him to in 2000, for a quarter of a billion dollars, is by far the highest ever for an athlete. A-Rod's $252 million over 10 years was negotiated at the height of the '90s irrational exuberance. When the Rangers' performance and attendance started collapsing, Hicks lost his gamble, having to trade ARod while continuing to cover part of his salary. Being known for your salary is a dubious recognition, but ARod handles it smoothly. "I'm proud of my contract," he says, sitting with his wife on the deck of their house as the sun sets over the bay. "I can't run away from that. I think we've been put in this situation, Cynthia and I, from a philanthropic point of view, to help thousands of kids." He is good.
Rodriguez had always dreamed of someday returning to New York, the city where he was born, and playing in the stadium he has always considered his favorite. "I've given you a few political answers today," he says, admitting that he has Ari Fleischered some of his responses. "But Yankee Stadium has the history, the fans, the ghosts, the Bronx." The road back has been a long one. He moved to the Dominican Republic when he was 4. When he was 9, his father left the family, and Rodriguez settled with his mother and two siblings near Miami. He was the top draft pick in 1993, signing with Seattle, and moved on to Texas when Hicks opened his vault. Hicks thought he was worth the cash because while he might not wow with Bondsian home runs into the next town, ARod, like his image, is metronomically perfect at every aspect of the game: running, fielding, hitting for average and belting home runs. Back when baseball was the nation's only sport, he would have been appreciated. Now he's a European model on a Baywatch episode.
Major League Baseball needs A-Rod's greatness to be a distraction from the steroid scandal that is making people want their money back from the home-run explosion of the past few years. The scandal didn't land within fungo distance of him, but Rodriguez, a company guy all the way, claims competing against cheaters doesn't bother him — only partly because he has led the American League in homers the past three years anyway. "I'm a strong believer in innocent until proven guilty," he says. "I've never assumed any other players were on steroids. I've never felt cheated."
Despite his obvious skill, ARod dismisses the possibility of ever running for office. Nor does he plan to ever manage a team or work in the front office. Instead, he says, he's considering going into the business world after finishing his college degree at the University of Miami. At 28, being in prime shape and, of course, with $252 million, he doesn't really have to stress on the postcareer stuff.
What he does need to worry about is winning. The real reason ARod hasn't become the superstar that baseball craves isn't that he's not a human highlight reel or that he played in small markets. ARod — impossibly talented, good-looking, 6 ft. 3, multilingual, hyperambitious, Armani clad and polished to perfect Jordanesque corporate blandness — is missing the only attribute most loved by kids who buy posters: winning. And if you can't get a ring with George Steinbrenner trying to buy one for you, then all the political skill in the world isn't going to make you the king of baseball.
- Joel Stein/Tampa