Posts tagged Alex Rodriguez at FanHouse

Remember a few months ago when Josh Hamilton had become America's darling? He had fought his way back from drug addiction to lead the Majors in home runs and RBI at the All-Star break with 21 long balls and 95 runs driven in. Then during the break, he thrilled us all with the performance he put on during the Home Run Derby at Yankee Stadium, crushing 28 homers in the first round before losing to Justin Morneau in the final.

Unfortunately for Josh, he did suffer a bit of the Home Run Derby Curse afterwards, as he hit only 11 more homers and knocked in only 35 runs afterward, but he was still the feel good story of 2008 in baseball. Of course, Josh doesn't just want to be the story of 2008, and he'd like to continue amazing baseball fans in 2009 which is why he won't be accepting any invitations to join the United States' team in the World Baseball Classic this spring.

"If I had four or five years under my belt, I think I would do it," said Hamilton. "I think I would be better served by going to spring training and by getting that work in, because I missed so much time.

"I was excited about it," Hamilton said about the possibility of playing for the U.S. in March. "I wanted to do it, especially with the chance to play with a guy like Derek Jeter. I think the next time it comes around I'd love to play."

While some people may not be happy with Hamilton for this decision, I agree with him here. When you think of all the time he's missed because of his drug addiction and suspension, if he feels he needs to spend more time working on his game to make himself the player he can be, then we should let him. After all, he only has a contract with the Texas Rangers, not the United States.

I mean, at least he isn't ditching the country he grew up in and called home all of his life to go play for the Dominican Republic or something, right A-Rod?

Our MLB editor files dispatches from the Winter Meetings in Las Vegas in Notes From Sin City.

Just when it looked like it was going to be a very quiet Winter Meetings, CC Sabathia, the biggest fish of all in a large free-agent pond, comes off the board. As they say in my home state of Maine, if you don't like the weather, just wait 15 minutes.

Here's a scattering of thoughts on the Sabathia deal as we wait for an official announcement from the Yankees, something which might not even happen today.

- In the end, the interest from the West Coast that Sabathia was so hoping for never materialized. He might have told Ned Colletti that he wanted to be a Dodger on Sunday, but L.A. never got serious about him. The Giants simply couldn't offer him the length of contract that he wanted and the Angels are still chasing after Mark Teixeira.

In fact, the Yankees' initial offer seems to have worked exactly as intended -- it blew everyone else out of the water, leaving the Brewers as the only team who kinda, sorta waded into the market and they simply couldn't mount a real challenge.

- The opt-out clause is interesting because it guarantees one of two thing -- either Sabathia's contract is going to become an enormous albatross or we're going to be repeating this scene three years from now. Seriously, when has a free agent with an opt-out clause ever not opted out if he's healthy. Alex Rodriguez, J.D. Drew and A.J. Burnett are the three most recent examples, and it simply makes no financial sense to stick with your original deal with the way inflation works in baseball.

- This almost certainly takes the Yankees out of the Mark Teixeira market, but they are far from done adding pitching. The guess here is that CC's teammate in Milwaukee, Ben Sheets, joins him in New York before Christmas. As for the Teixeira market, nothing is going to happen here in Vegas, but it should progress quickly in the next two weeks. He too wants to settle on a team before the holidays.

Alex Rodriguez caught a lot of flak for his inability to decide what country to play for -- the United States or his "home" Dominican Republic -- in the original World Baseball Classic. And naturally, because he's such a choker (duh), Team USA failed to win anything, much less even make it to the finals.

Now, according to David Ortiz, A-Rod has decided he will play for the Dominican in the WBC next year.

Ortiz is hosting a charity golf tournament in the Dominican city of Punta Cana this weekend. He said Rodriguez, who is playing in the tournament, is expected to announce his decision at the function. Rodriguez and Ortiz are close friends.
"He wants to play for the Dominican team," Ortiz said by telephone Thursday. "We'll talk about it now after he gets here, and he'll probably announce it here."

Ortiz said he has not spoken recently with Rodriguez about his intentions, but that as far back as the All-Star Game last July in New York, he said A-Rod had expressed a desire to play for the Dominican Republic.

Well, this shouldn't generate any questions in the media at all. A-Rod is already considered to be kind of a scapegoat for teams that can't seem to make it to a championship, so it's really almost guaranteed at this point that people question his loyalty and willingness to win (or something stupid like that), America wins the WBC, and then Rodriguez gets labeled a choker again. In other words, just your standard offseason for A-Rod in the mainstream media.

In case you weren't already aware, you only have 20 shopping days left until Christmas, so if you haven't gotten your shopping/Wal-Mart killing spree started yet, you should probably get started on that already. Of course, some people are really hard to shop for which is where gift cards come in handy, but there are some people in your life where gift cards are just too impersonal.

I remember when I was a kid it was easy. I would just buy my mom some crappy piece of jewelry they sold at Santa's Workshop day at school, and I would get my dad some underwear. Well these days it's a bit tougher, and it's too bad my old man isn't a Yankees or a Red Sox fan because if he was I'd be able to keep the underwear tradition alive.

Got a Yankees fan on your Christmas list? Or maybe a Red Sox groupie you want to aggravate? Well, why just buy them an A-Rod shirt when you can get Alex Rodriguez's authentic game-used underwear????

Now there's a gift that keeps on giving!

Phil Castinetti of SportsWorld in Saugus has gotten his mitts on some All-Star undies - A-Rod's, Kevin Youkilis' and Josh Beckett's - and he's selling them on eBay starting today.

And in case you were wondering -- and I know you were -- they are in fact game used. As for how Phil got his hands on them, he's not saying and frankly I'm not sure I want to know. The bidding starts at $9.99, and though Castinetti said he'd put them up for auction today, as of this very moment there are no listings. I guess he wants to build suspense.

Alex Rodriguez is really becoming a pariah, of sorts, for the New York media. Thanksgiving hasn't even happened yet, and he's already being dragged through the mud about his holiday plans. You see, he's allegedly going to spend the break with Madonna instead of his children.

Instead of ushering in the holidays in Miami with his children, Natasha, 4, and Ella, 1 - A-Rod, 33, is hosting a dinner at his Manhattan apartment for Madonna, 50, and her kids, Lourdes, Rocco, and David, and manager Guy Oseary.

If that was really true, I'd have to agree it's a pretty selfish and brutal thing to do to your kids. I mean, Thanksgiving is a holiday where families generally spend time together -- unlike the night before.

Reports are surfacing, however, that contradict the above report from the New York Post. According to Us Magazine, the Post is completely wrong:

"He's going to be with Cynthia and her entire family for Thanksgiving, and this has been planned for months," the insider adds. "It's quite a big celebration."

"They have a large family get together every year," the source tells Us. "It was always his intention to go to the family get together with her family, and it includes a whole array of relatives."

It couldn't be going any better. In just four months you've become a Yankee legend. A homer off Jonathan Papelbon to win your first game back at Fenway Park, two three-homer games at the new Yankee Stadium, and a .415 batting average have you being cheered with a lustiness that makes Derek Jeter green with envy.

Every corner of the city thrills to your exploits. When you pull out your cell phone to make a call during a pitching change, no one makes a fuss. In fact, Verizon has given you $20 million to be their new spokesman. Your jerseys are flying off the shelves and hospitals are full of kids named Manny Ramirez ______. You could run for Mayor and beat Bloomberg.

Life is so good that you go out to Nobu to celebrate with some friends after slugging a homer and driving in five to beat the Orioles in early August. You're enjoying the sushi and sipping some sake when you feel a tap on your shoulder. You turn to see Madonna smiling at you.

"I just wanted to say hello. And wanted to tell you how much I love your dreadlocks, they're so spiritual."

You're smitten instantly. You spend the rest of the night telling her everything about yourself and she explains Kabbalah theories to you well into the next morning. The next few weeks are repeats, long nights spent in clandestine meetings full of romance, until the fateful day a photographer catches the two of you leaving your apartment together.

The photo is everywhere you look, impossible for Alex Rodriguez to miss. You walk into the clubhouse later that day to learn the news that he's disappeared. He was last seen running shirtless through Central Park, tears streaming down his face, holding a copy of the photo.

The Yankees fall apart without his bat to protect you in the lineup. A long losing streak costs Joe Girardi his job, people blame you for everything, and the Red Sox run away with the division. And you couldn't care a whit. You've found that true love is all you need.

THE END.

(Not sure how you got here? Start Choose Your Own Adventure: Manny Being Choosey in Free Agency from the beginning.)

Footprints in the Snow is FanHouse's look at the paths to be forged by MLB teams this winter as they look ahead to 2009.

There's only one word that fits as a tagline for the 2008 New York Yankees: Failure. Failure to make the playoffs for the first time since 1993, failure to inject youth into an aging lineup and rotation, and failure to make anything meaningful out of the highest payroll in all of baseball. Harsh, perhaps, for a team that won 89 games in one of the toughest divisions in recent memory, but the Yankees don't get graded on a curve.

There were some individual successes. Mike Mussina won 20 games for the first time in his career. Mariano Rivera padded a legacy that will land him in Cooperstown exactly five years after he stops entering to "Enter Sandman," and Alex Rodriguez, despite more tabloid headlines and awful statistics in the clutch, had a year that would be a career best for many players.

But the disappointments were more pronounced. Neither Phil Hughes nor Ian Kennedy made Brian Cashman look smart for refusing to trade them for Johan Santana. Melky Cabrera regressed so far that he ended up in Triple-A, and Robinson Cano looked more like a future plumber than a future star. That's created huge holes in center and the rotation, and called into question how well the Yankees are developing a wave of players that can carry them when the remaining stalwarts fade into the sunset.

Normally when a player on your team wins an award, it's something to be celebrated. Teams are proud to know that their players have won a Cy Young, or an MVP, or a Gold Glove, as it's a positive reflection of the team. Well, sometimes having a player get recognition can throw a wrench in your plans, especially when you were hoping to ask a player to change positions next season and he goes and wins a Gold Glove.

That's what the Rangers are dealing with right now -- well aside from removing all of Jarrod Saltalamacchia's Jason Varitek posters from the clubhouse walls -- as they were hoping to move Michael Young to second base next season, and then he had to mess the whole thing up by being really good at playing short.

The Gold Glove American League managers and coaches bestowed upon Young on Thursday will likely entrench him even further at shortstop for the Rangers for the foreseeable future.

Young adamantly doesn't want to change positions anyway, but, with talented Elvis Andrus coming quickly in the minors, maybe by 2010, the Rangers have been trying to figure out how to get both in the lineup. Young's ability to make the routine play and turn the double play was what earned him his first Gold Glove. Andrus is more athletic with more range.

I don't see why the Rangers can't still ask Michael to move over to second base (Ian Kinsler would move to third) just because he won a Gold Glove. After all, they are still his boss and they do sign his paycheck. Besides, it's not like Young didn't move to second when the team signed Alex Rodriguez, and he didn't want to make the move then either.

Lost in all this World Series hullabaloo and the discussions about who did what right or wrong is the very serious issue of a Guitar Hero commercial where some people we know get in their underwear and dance around like the freewheelin' Tom Cruise circa 1983. If you haven't seen it yet, here it is:



Tonight's Dugout may be stopped in the middle and continued two days from now, but read what you can after the jump.

The Boston Red Sox might not have been able to beat the Tampa Bay Rays in a very entertaining ALCS, but that doesn't mean the organization isn't tasting sweet victory in other arenas of life. You see, back in July 2005 a man named Brad Francis Sherman came up with an idea that was bound to make him a millionaire. Step one of his master plan was to put the words "sex rod" on a bunch of different items of apparel. Step three was profit.

Unfortunately, Brad didn't think about step two, which was to trademark it and then have the Red Sox oppose that trademark and take him to court. They did, and Brad lost.