I am most certainly not a Yankees fan, but I couldn't help but feeling a little sorry for the pinstriped loyalists as they watched Jeter -- someone you had to respect no matter your allegiances -- exit stage right, as A-Rod -- someone I'll go out on a limb and say is the antithesis of Jeter in that regard -- make his return.
Baseball is a sport where you're not necessarily bound by rings, the same way you constantly hear about in the NBA or NFL, certainly. Look no further than the Atlanta Braves' run of 14 straight division titles from 1991-2005 remembered fondly rather than as a colossal failure due to winning just one World Series in the stretch.
You know one reason the Braves could never really get over the top? The New York Yankees. Atlanta lost two fall classics to the Bombers, in 1996 and 1999.
Those Yankees lineups were stupid good. A young Jeter, along with Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez, Paul O'Neill, Jorge Posada, Chuck Knoblauch, current Red Sox hitting coach Chili Davis...the beat goes on.
The Yankees won five World Series between 1996 and 2000, and reached two more in '01 and '03. As the majority of the roster turned over after the loss to the Diamondbacks in 2001, the Yankees rebuilt while contending. They won the AL East in 2002 and lost to the ultimate World-champion Angels in the ALDS, and as you may recall, beat the Red Sox in '03 before Josh Beckett shut them down.
Their response to coming up short? Trading for A-Rod...after the Red Sox failed to acquire him that same off-season.
In what truly became a case of sometimes the best moves are the ones you don't make, A-Rod's arrival with the Yankees ushered in a strange era: where the Yankees were almost always in the postseason, but perennially came up short.
The Red Sox comeback in the 2004 ALCS sent the Yankees into a tailspin, at least by their standards. New York lost in the ALDS in '05, '06 and '07 and missed the playoffs entirely in 2008 -- the first October without the Bombers since 1993.
No one embodied the shortcomings more than A-Rod, who won the AL MVP in both '05 and '07. But while he dominated the regular season, from the 2004 ALCS through the 2007 ALDS, Rodriguez hit just .200 (15 for 75) with three home runs in postseason play. The low point came in '06, when he was demoted to eighth in the Yankees lineup vs. Detroit and hit .071 (1 for 14) in the series.
You could even make a case Joe Torre, by almost any metric a top-five manager in baseball history, decided A-Rod wasn't worth the headache in his departure from the Bronx after the 2007 season.
A-Rod opted out of his contract during Game 4 of the 2007 World Series (Red Sox vs. Rockies). Literally during the game. I remember Joe Buck sending it down to Ken Rosenthal for the announcement.
It seems minor, but it sums A-Rod up pretty well. A total lack of self-awareness, trying to hijack a moment which he'd never been a part of: the World Series.
A-Rod's Yankees tenure won't go down as an abject failure, as the team did return to the top in 2009 by beating the Phillies in six games. A-Rod hit .250 (5 for 20) in the World Series, but to his credit, was outstanding in the ALDS vs. Minnesota (5 for 11) and ALCS vs. Anaheim (9 for 21, for a combined average of .438). Let's not forget, however, the Yankees dropped a quarter-billion dollars on Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia and AJ Burnett prior to the season.
After '09, A-Rod returned to shrinking in big moments. His postseason batting average from 2010 through last year's AL Wild Card game vs. Houston was .152 (12 for 79), without a home run and just two extra-base hits total.
We know all about the Biogenesis suspension in 2014, the failed drug test that came to light in '09. We know the Seattle Mariners won an American League-record 116 games following A-Rod's departure in 2001. We know the Texas Rangers improved from 71 wins to 89 wins sans A-Rod after dishing him to the Yankees for Alfonso Soriano just after Valentine's Day in 2004. We know about the slap of the ball away from Bronson Arroyo. We know Jason Varitek stuck his glove in A-Rod's grill, arguably the turning point of the 2004 regular season. We know about his awkward presentation at the ESPY's in 2015, which probably gets forgotten due to Caitlyn Jenner's appearance an hour later.
We know that players don't just retire in the middle of the season for the hell of it. If I'm a Yankees fan, I've gotta feel pretty good knowing A-Rod won't hit 700 home runs (unless he plays this week vs. the Red Sox, in which case Clay Buchholz will surely groove him a few pitches). He won't catch Babe Ruth's 714 home run mark.
On a sheet of paper, be it a baseball card or his page on Baseball Reference, Alex Rodriguez will go down as one of the greatest players in the history of the game. He was the No. 1 overall pick in 1993, and you can make a case he's among the highest-performing top picks of all-time, right there with Ken Griffey Jr. and Chipper Jones.
But all things considered, I'm not sure how you can look at A-Rod's career as anything but a disappointment. Particularly his tenure with the Yankees.
Since his arrival led to the definitive end of a sustained run of success in the Bronx, you can't help but worry...will his departure signal the beginning of a new one?
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