This appears in the Monday April 6, 2009 edition of the Business Mirror.
http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/sports/8381-a-promise-unfulfilled.html
http://businessmirror.com.ph/home/sports/8381-a-promise-unfulfilled.html
A-Promise Unfulfilled
How I am a tongue-in-cheek footnote to the Yankees and the rivalry with the Red Sox
by rick olivares
On the eve of the new Major League Baseball season, I have a couple of confessions to make.
First, I would like to claim some responsibility for bringing Alex Rodriguez to the New York Yankees. No, I do not even have a teensy teensy fraction of the wealth of team owner George Steinbrenner for the Yankee third baseman to deign to have coffee with me but I nevertheless bear some guilt.
Second, I am a willing and guilty participant to the New York-Boston rivalry.
But who knows? Maybe if I hadn’t led the chants of “Let’s go, A-Rod” maybe Rodriguez would have gone on to the Boston Red Sox and we’d have the pinstriped dynasty still lording it over baseball? Maybe the Curse of the Bambino (or is it Dan Shaughnessy) would still be upon Boston like a plague. Maybe New York would have won its fifth World Series title under Joe Torre’s watch and maybe Friends (God, bless Jennifer Aniston) would still be on the air.
No, I am not regretting A-Rod going to the Bronx after all, he has given us plenty to cheer about. Except that it’s not in October.
Yes, I know the confession I am about to make is preposterous in its impact by a country mile but allow me to indulge myself in a hitherto unknown footnotes in Yankee lore. Besides it’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
During the spring of 2004, Rodriguez, the Texas Rangers’ slugging short shortstop was the biggest free agent in the off-season. At first, Boston seemed to have the inside track on the then current Most Valuable Player. New York tried to make a play for him but seemed out of the A-Rod Sweepstakes… until spring of 2004 when there was a sliver of a chance of seeing him in pinstripes.
That was when I led a host of New Yorkers in chanting “Let’s go, A-Rod” and “Let’s go, Yankees” as he discussed his options with his then-agent Scot Boras in the building next to where I worked in East 49th and Fifth Avenue. Surely he must have seen us waving Yankee caps and chanting out heads off as we engaged a gaggle of visiting Red Sox fans. We even made FOX News that day.
I had enmeshed myself firmly in the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry and I was proud of it.
Months later, while visiting a friend in Beantown, in a moment of hubris, I stepped off the bus wearing a Yankees cap. A few paces later, I spotted three men in a bar giving me a menacing finger. A block away, cops pulled me over with a friendly tip – take off the cap if I wanted to live longer.
I did but I got my revenge months later when Boston visited the Stadium. A couple of fool Red Sox fans made the mistake of sitting in the upper tier section with all of us NY fans. It didn’t take long for them to be showered with abuse. I got my licks in as pelted them with a bag of popcorn and nachos. It was an expensive bit of revenge (cost me $20). Minutes later, the Boston fans got doused in beer by some rowdy Yankee supporters and they left.
I received an ovation.
And it looked like Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman got some help from me because on February 15, 2004, Alex Rodriguez was traded by Texas to New York.
I did the jig, downed a few Buds with my mates, and bought every tabloid in the Big Apple to celebrate the occasion. And I staked out Modell’s on Broadway for the first batch of replica Rodriguez Yankee jerseys.
However, there were a couple of matters that A-Rod had to attend to prior to the press conference. First, he had to decide on what jersey number to wear. In Seattle and Texas, he wore No. 3. That wasn’t going to happen in pinstripes as the number has long since been retired and was honored in Yankee Stadium’s Monument Park. It was the late great Babe Ruth’s number.
Although Rodriguez had put up Ruthian feats on the diamond he was still had yet to win a title. What better place to win his first than in New York?
It didn’t take the newest Yankee to choose a number as he decided on No. 13. Every alarm in my body clock began to ring. It was simple, I reasoned -- it had the number three on it and it was his number when he played quarterback in Westminster Christian High in Miami in honor of Dolphins QB Dan Marino.
Not soon after that, Rodriguez, paid a visit to the Yankee clubhouse to choose a locker. There were two vacancies – that of injured third baseman Aaron Boone and that of departed pitcher David Wells.
The southpaw pitcher’s locker was way towards the back of the clubhouse and afforded more space and privacy. I’m not the superstitious sort as I already chose to ignore A-Rod wearing #13 but when he chose Boomer’s locker (as Wells is nicknamed), I gulped and hoped that he wouldn’t inherit Wells’ penchant for sublime clubhouse mayhem.
As luck would have it, Rodriguez fed the tabloid chatter with stories of travails with busty blondes, run-ins with the Boston’s Jason Varitek and Bronson Arroyo, and colossal fold-ups in post-season play.
“I still feel like someone is going to pinch me and wake me up,” he enthused when he was introduced as a Yankee.
His introduction had more fanfare than the previous season’s pick up in Japanese slugger Hideki Matsui. After all, A-Rod was already a superstar and he made the huge switch from shortstop – Jeter’s position – to third base which was vacated by Boone after a crippling knee injury while playing pick up basketball.
Joe Torre seemed the least surprised by Rodriguez’ seamless 90-foot switch. “This guy’s been doing it in the infield for years. He’s not going to forget how to field because you move him a few feet over.”
And he has been prodigious at the plate as he has won two Most Valuable Player Awards since his arrival in the Bronx. He’s led the American League in home runs in 2005 and 2007, the first Yankee to do so since Reggie Jackson did way back in 1980.
Yet unlike Jackson who is forever known as “Mr. October,” Rodriguez is New York’s “Mr. April-to-August.” To this generation of Yankee fans, he is today’s Dave Winfield (who happens to be one of my fave Bronx Bombers); a high-priced free agent who helped win a lot of games but not the big ones.
As for me? I hope someone would pinch me so that I’d wake up and say exclaim, “Damn that was the strangest dream – the Yankees suck because they have Alex Rodriguez on the team.”
Reality bites. Boston has won two World Series while the Yanks have sputtered in the post-season. They didn’t even make it last year.
Now I am feverishly thinking of a way to jump-start A-Rod -- do we give him another busty blonde or Madonna – and the Yankees.
Batter up!
Further reading:
Jay Greenberg (New York Post):
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04032009/sports/yankees/traditions_made_it_safely_across_street_162671.htm
From ESPN:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2009/news/story?id=4041053
From Sports Illustrated:
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1153909/index.htm
Game time!
Let's go, Yankees!
First, I would like to claim some responsibility for bringing Alex Rodriguez to the New York Yankees. No, I do not even have a teensy teensy fraction of the wealth of team owner George Steinbrenner for the Yankee third baseman to deign to have coffee with me but I nevertheless bear some guilt.
Second, I am a willing and guilty participant to the New York-Boston rivalry.
But who knows? Maybe if I hadn’t led the chants of “Let’s go, A-Rod” maybe Rodriguez would have gone on to the Boston Red Sox and we’d have the pinstriped dynasty still lording it over baseball? Maybe the Curse of the Bambino (or is it Dan Shaughnessy) would still be upon Boston like a plague. Maybe New York would have won its fifth World Series title under Joe Torre’s watch and maybe Friends (God, bless Jennifer Aniston) would still be on the air.
No, I am not regretting A-Rod going to the Bronx after all, he has given us plenty to cheer about. Except that it’s not in October.
Yes, I know the confession I am about to make is preposterous in its impact by a country mile but allow me to indulge myself in a hitherto unknown footnotes in Yankee lore. Besides it’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
During the spring of 2004, Rodriguez, the Texas Rangers’ slugging short shortstop was the biggest free agent in the off-season. At first, Boston seemed to have the inside track on the then current Most Valuable Player. New York tried to make a play for him but seemed out of the A-Rod Sweepstakes… until spring of 2004 when there was a sliver of a chance of seeing him in pinstripes.
That was when I led a host of New Yorkers in chanting “Let’s go, A-Rod” and “Let’s go, Yankees” as he discussed his options with his then-agent Scot Boras in the building next to where I worked in East 49th and Fifth Avenue. Surely he must have seen us waving Yankee caps and chanting out heads off as we engaged a gaggle of visiting Red Sox fans. We even made FOX News that day.
I had enmeshed myself firmly in the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry and I was proud of it.
Months later, while visiting a friend in Beantown, in a moment of hubris, I stepped off the bus wearing a Yankees cap. A few paces later, I spotted three men in a bar giving me a menacing finger. A block away, cops pulled me over with a friendly tip – take off the cap if I wanted to live longer.
I did but I got my revenge months later when Boston visited the Stadium. A couple of fool Red Sox fans made the mistake of sitting in the upper tier section with all of us NY fans. It didn’t take long for them to be showered with abuse. I got my licks in as pelted them with a bag of popcorn and nachos. It was an expensive bit of revenge (cost me $20). Minutes later, the Boston fans got doused in beer by some rowdy Yankee supporters and they left.
I received an ovation.
And it looked like Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman got some help from me because on February 15, 2004, Alex Rodriguez was traded by Texas to New York.
I did the jig, downed a few Buds with my mates, and bought every tabloid in the Big Apple to celebrate the occasion. And I staked out Modell’s on Broadway for the first batch of replica Rodriguez Yankee jerseys.
However, there were a couple of matters that A-Rod had to attend to prior to the press conference. First, he had to decide on what jersey number to wear. In Seattle and Texas, he wore No. 3. That wasn’t going to happen in pinstripes as the number has long since been retired and was honored in Yankee Stadium’s Monument Park. It was the late great Babe Ruth’s number.
Although Rodriguez had put up Ruthian feats on the diamond he was still had yet to win a title. What better place to win his first than in New York?
It didn’t take the newest Yankee to choose a number as he decided on No. 13. Every alarm in my body clock began to ring. It was simple, I reasoned -- it had the number three on it and it was his number when he played quarterback in Westminster Christian High in Miami in honor of Dolphins QB Dan Marino.
Not soon after that, Rodriguez, paid a visit to the Yankee clubhouse to choose a locker. There were two vacancies – that of injured third baseman Aaron Boone and that of departed pitcher David Wells.
The southpaw pitcher’s locker was way towards the back of the clubhouse and afforded more space and privacy. I’m not the superstitious sort as I already chose to ignore A-Rod wearing #13 but when he chose Boomer’s locker (as Wells is nicknamed), I gulped and hoped that he wouldn’t inherit Wells’ penchant for sublime clubhouse mayhem.
As luck would have it, Rodriguez fed the tabloid chatter with stories of travails with busty blondes, run-ins with the Boston’s Jason Varitek and Bronson Arroyo, and colossal fold-ups in post-season play.
“I still feel like someone is going to pinch me and wake me up,” he enthused when he was introduced as a Yankee.
His introduction had more fanfare than the previous season’s pick up in Japanese slugger Hideki Matsui. After all, A-Rod was already a superstar and he made the huge switch from shortstop – Jeter’s position – to third base which was vacated by Boone after a crippling knee injury while playing pick up basketball.
Joe Torre seemed the least surprised by Rodriguez’ seamless 90-foot switch. “This guy’s been doing it in the infield for years. He’s not going to forget how to field because you move him a few feet over.”
And he has been prodigious at the plate as he has won two Most Valuable Player Awards since his arrival in the Bronx. He’s led the American League in home runs in 2005 and 2007, the first Yankee to do so since Reggie Jackson did way back in 1980.
Yet unlike Jackson who is forever known as “Mr. October,” Rodriguez is New York’s “Mr. April-to-August.” To this generation of Yankee fans, he is today’s Dave Winfield (who happens to be one of my fave Bronx Bombers); a high-priced free agent who helped win a lot of games but not the big ones.
As for me? I hope someone would pinch me so that I’d wake up and say exclaim, “Damn that was the strangest dream – the Yankees suck because they have Alex Rodriguez on the team.”
Reality bites. Boston has won two World Series while the Yanks have sputtered in the post-season. They didn’t even make it last year.
Now I am feverishly thinking of a way to jump-start A-Rod -- do we give him another busty blonde or Madonna – and the Yankees.
Batter up!
Further reading:
Jay Greenberg (New York Post):
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04032009/sports/yankees/traditions_made_it_safely_across_street_162671.htm
From ESPN:
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/spring2009/news/story?id=4041053
From Sports Illustrated:
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1153909/index.htm
Game time!
Let's go, Yankees!
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