ALEX RODRIGUEZ is the Yankees, and the Yankees are Alex Rodriguez.
Rodriguez has never symbolized the team more than now. He is the richest player on the richest team. He is most talented and most despised, just like the Yankees. Like so many teammates, Rodriguez is thirtysomething and battling back from physical maladies.
And after so many empty Octobers, both Rodriguez and the Yankees again will try to enhance their postseason reputations.
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But if you want to believe that the playoffs will be different this time for the largest personality and biggest team, then focus on how the hugest collection of stars became a cohesive galaxy.
Offseason acquisitions Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Nick Swisher brought not only substantial talent, but also personalities that enhanced the bonhomie of the group. Manager Joe Girardi preached unity over individualism, and the roster pretty much bought into a positivism that helped buoy spirits even when the Red Sox opened 8-0 against the Yankees.
No player needed to be blanketed in such an atmosphere more than Rodriguez. And no one needed to buy into the concept more than a player both humiliated and debilitated before ever taking a meaningful swing in 2009. To his credit, Rodriguez stopped making it about him, and melded more into the group.
That is why he was soaked and squinting through the sting of champagne late yesterday afternoon as he said, “it has been a special year.” That’s true for both Rodriguez and the team he so epitomizes.
The Yankees did not wilt at 0-8 against the Red Sox. These Yankees stayed upbeat, honored their talent, and became a regular-season wrecking ball destroying all in their path. On this final weekend of September, it was again the Red Sox who were flattened. The Yankees completed a three-game sweep with a 4-2 victory that incredibly evened the season series at 9-9 while clinching both the AL East and the majors’ best record.
Andy Pettitte pitched six strong innings for his 14th win and Hideki Matsui reached 90 RBIs by delivering a two-out, two-run single in the sixth to put the Yanks ahead. They were two of the thirtysomethings returning from injury. Teixeira homered for insurance in the eighth inning. That gave the most expensive position player signed in the offseason 120 RBIs, a day after the most expensive pitcher signed in the offseason, Sabathia, won his 19th game.
But the key at-bat belonged to A-Rod. Behind Paul Byrd 0-2 with two out and one on in the sixth, Rodriguez battled and battled — kind of like he did to simply get back on the field this year — and on the 10th pitch lashed a single to center to knock out Byrd. Matsui followed with his decisive single off Takashi Saito.
“When Alex came back to our lineup, our lineup started rolling,” Pettitte said.
The Yankees were 13-15 when Rodriguez was disabled, and are 87-41 since. It is no accident. “It is tough to do what they have done, especially since Alex came back,” Boston manager Terry Francona said.
Rodriguez has been a difference-making force batting cleanup — amazing because he had a nightmare while recovering from hip surgery in Colorado that he would never play at all this year.
At that moment, he had the tabloid disgrace that was his 2008 season, a steroid revelation that soiled his legacy and hip surgery that threatened his career. So Rodriguez decided to embrace the group, to play for joy. That helped displace the tension, and a symbiotic relationship was formed in which the team defused pressure on Rodriguez, and A-Rod’s elite skill made it easier for everyone around him to thrive.
That mutual cooperation led to a celebration that washed across the clubhouse yesterday. Maybe that will all dissolve into familiar recriminations with a Rodriguez 0-for-4 in AL Division Series Game 1, coupled with a Yankees loss. Or maybe this finally will be the year that both star and star-infused team can relax and thrive in October.
“I have been through hell and back,” Rodriguez said.
Can you get to the Canyon of Heroes from hell?