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The Mets of 69 was a strange phenomenon, not just because a team in years past were always landing up in the lower part of the standings, suddenly won it all. Because when you look at their pitching staff it was solid but because players who throughout their career were just average players JERRY GROTE, CLEON JONES, ED KRANEPOOL[EVEN AL WEIS IN THE WORLD SERIES] started to get batting averages they never got before. Everything just seem to go in the right place for the miracle Mets that year . looking back at it now it seems even stranger, like a spiritual awakening.
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Posted: |
Jul 24, 2013 - 12:18 AM
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By: |
Eric Paddon
(Member)
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Any day now, we will hear the news on the fate of Alex Rodriguez. I would prefer to get my thoughts out now before the word comes down because regardless of the specifics of what will come, I know he will never play a game of baseball again. His time is over. And it is the ultimate irony that as we prepare for Rodriguez to exit, the Yankees are on the verge (borne by desperation) of reacquiring Alfonso Soriano, the man they traded for Rodriguez long ago.
That double irony makes this a time for reflection for me, because I am long past the point of feeling any kind of outrage with regard to Rodriguez. He is his own worst enemy who squandered incredible talent and through his bad attitude, inability to fit in and but for 2009, postseason failure, won't leave with the kind of reserve goodwill that San Francisco Giant fans will extend to Barry Bonds. Yankee fans will say good riddance to him and wonder looking back, how but for an ill-advised (and contractually illegal) game of pick-up basketball by Aaron Boone, the hero of the 2003 ALCS, we would have been spared the saga of Rodriguez in a Yankee uniform. If Boone doesn't play that game and void his contract in the process, then Alex Rodriguez becomes a member of the Boston Red Sox, the team that remember *first* traded for him but the trade was voided by the Players Association because the Red Sox were not willing to pick up all the money of the contract and wanted Rodriguez to give back part of his contract (which in fact, he was *willing* to do, but the Union, in their typical fashion, wouldn't stand for that kind of precedent). So that left the Yankees as the only team that could take on Rodriguez, and ONLY because of Aaron Boone's injury did they have a place for him because if they still have Aaron Boone, the hero of the 2003 ALCS still with them and under contract, they don't make that trade. And who knows, maybe there is no nightmare of 2004, where the defining moment that convinced me that the Yankees were dead was when Rodriguez struck out in the 8th inning and failed to drive in a key run that would have put the Yankees up 5-2 and given them a margin for victory. Maybe in effect, Aaron Boone is the one singlehandedly responsible for ending the Curse Of The Bambino (but then again if Mariano Rivera has a typical Rivera inning, they win Game 4!)
This thread is littered with my rants at Rodriguez during the 2006-2007 period when his shortcomings stood out big time, especially his postseason chokes. And they have my praise for him when in 2009, he seemed in the wake of the first steroids revelation, a more humble team player who contributed to what may ultimately be the last great season I will ever experience as a Yankee fan. I will even be honest as to admit that when he hit the 9th inning game tying home run of Game 2 of the ALCS, that was the most exciting moment I ever witnessed in person at a baseball game. Even as I condemn Rodriguez for every lie, every betrayal, every other transgression of his, I won't be dishonest and deny that he earned his ring in 2009 and didn't just steal one like say, Jose Canseco in 2000 or Kenny Rogers in 1996. And Yankee fans will have to admit that collectively, his contributing to one World Series title represents one more World Series title collectively than was ever done by the likes of Dave Winfield, Jason Giambi and even Don Mattingly for that matter. We have to acknowledge the good that was there even as the bad and the ugly ultimately outnumbered the good in the totality of the experience. Certainly if I had to do it over again and if I could have known what was going to come, I never would have made that trade and I would have let Alfonso Soriano prosper as a Yankee great. Which of course is no guarantee of anything in terms of what would have happened post-2003. But at the very least as a Yankee fan, I would be spared of having to see this fall of Alex Rodriguez become intertwined with the story of my team.
But what's done is done. The matter of Alex Rodriguez will soon be closed and like Giamatti said on the day he banned Pete Rose, the game will go on and it will always be bigger than any one individual. Rather than just wallow in further outrage and anger, I just prefer to let him disappear quietly, not expurgate his role in contributing to a championship in 2009, and just move on from it.
My two cents.
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[ Once you get HIS e-response, you'll be consummately - and permanently - chagrined to know nothing will e'er be 'well' Ever again, Anz. 
(well ok Torii hit into a DP) 
