ALEX Rodriguez has a lot of time for rehab now, and he can probably do some work on his hip, as well.
This is, perhaps, the last best chance Rodriguez will ever have to repair a reputation sabotaged by his insecurity, insincerity and uncanny savantism for saying the wrong thing.
For drama’s sake, let’s say Rodriguez will return from his hip surgery on May 4, the first game ever at the new Stadium between the Red Sox and Yankees. Despite all that has transpired over the past five years, A-Rod should know his first at-bat will be greeted by a rousing standing ovation that will mean this from the New York fans: The door is open again for you. We want the storybook in which you recover, and not only from the operating table, but from the self-sabotage you have been performing on your image.
Rodriguez will be in Colorado at least three weeks, away from the game and away from the Yankees. He’ll have three weeks to ponder where he is and where he might like to go. I do believe that at his core, Rodriguez loves baseball, loves it in a gym-rat way you would associate more with a baseball vagabond finding one more season in Japan or Korea or Mexico.
But I also believe that over the years, Rodriguez has lost his way. He has forgotten that baseball makes everything else in his life possible. His insatiable needs and greed have led him to a more complicated life: Phil Hellmuth by his side at 4 a.m. in illegal Manhattan poker clubs, Warren Buffett involved in his contract negotiations, Madonna in his bed.
It has hardly felt like being a baseball player is enough, as Rodriguez has attempted (and failed) being a real estate mogul, and ensconcing himself among the rich and beautiful. His sense of entitlement has blown up to the point where he not only has Cousin Yuri as a valet, but is still bringing him into off-limit areas even after the steroid revelations ensnared them both. And Yuri is just part of his posse. Rodriguez is the only Yankee who has one clubhouse kid assigned specifically to him.
In his time away maybe Rodriguez will realize that the game must be the central part of his life. Yes, athletes such as Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods and, yes, Derek Jeter have had interests away from their sports, but no one ever wondered about their priorities. Rodriguez needs to get more Spartan in the coming weeks, especially since the publication of Selena Roberts’ book promises more revelations and to make Rodriguez’s perception worse.
He needs to start shedding p.r. firms and hangers-on and that outsized hunger for attention, acceptance and having more than the next guy (especially when the next guy is named Jeter).
The surgery he has this morning will provide Rodriguez what few people ever get, another chance. The crowd, believe it or not, wants to cheer his return. Will Alex Rodriguez learn to let them?