CLOWN PRINCE: Alex Rodriguez has spent more time fielding questions from reporters this season than on the field for the Yankees. (Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post)
We sat in the stands down the third base line at PNC Field in Moosic, Pa., on Sunday, and I told Alex Rodriguez something directly — not through intermediaries or sources or third parties — I have wanted to for a long time:
“The shame is we will never know what your career would have been had you stayed clean. Would you have been a 500 [homer]-500 [steal] guy? More? Less? I would have loved to see what someone with your talent would have been without ever touching steroids.”
Rodriguez did not reply. I didn’t expect one. This was just something I think about regularly with all the players, such as Barry Bonds and A-Rod, I perceive would have been great without performance-enhancing drug use. For greed, ego, insecurity or some cocktail of that and more, they didn’t completely invest in their natural talents.
So this is where we are with A-Rod, admitted steroids user from 2001-04 and — if MLB investigators are to be believed — much longer and more recently than that. The MLB pursuit of Rodriguez has him putting on a public defense that is farcical and bizarre, loopy and loony, and so heavy with innuendo and paranoia it reads more like a script of “The X-Files” than a coherent explanation of his actions.
Mostly it is sad. It was not that long ago the same people who now haunt Rodriguez, MLB officials, were building advertising campaigns around his skills. It was not that long ago a team he now claims is trying to short circuit his career was signing him to a record contract because — long gulp here — he was going to be the Clean Home Run Champ.
Right, sounds crazy with today’s knowledge. But the Yankees were willing to invest $275 million and another $30 million in milestone homer bonuses because they envisioned a financial windfall from televising Rodriguez passing Mays and Ruth and Aaron and, finally, ousting that rotten scoundrel Bonds from the throne of what once was the most-cherished record in sports. That was in the 2007-08 offseason, not exactly ancient history.
Now look at where we are: Rodriguez’s reputation has veered into the left lane of infamy, passing Bonds and Lance Armstrong and Tiger Woods as if they were misunderstood choirboys. Rodriguez has become a WWE villain tinged with a Kardashian blessed by Anthony Weiner.
Even if you buy MLB is conducting a witch hunt and the Yankees are nefariously maneuvering to get out of paying that largest contract ever, A-Rod’s public defense has made him look worse, not better — a strategy more self-destructive Costanza than self-defense Cochrane.
Rodriguez has done the renegade thing, bypassing the Yankees to see doctors and get out messages that he is healthy and ready to play. Let’s put aside the insubordination and accept Rodriguez’s reasoning — that he simply does not trust the Yankees. Fine, then why not at the same time also have the most powerful union in the country file a grievance on his behalf that he is healthy and ready to come off the disabled list and the Yankees are preventing that to try to collect on an insurance policy?
A-Rod — again without the Yankees’ knowledge or consent — went on with Mike Francesa yesterday and said, “I didn’t even know I could do that [file a grievance through the union].” Which is strange since I asked him Sunday in person why not file a grievance, and I have asked his lead spokesman at least three times why A-Rod doesn’t.
But this is the bizarro world. For which other player in any team sport would authorize a doctor who had never personally examined him to address the media about his readiness to play? Of course, since it was A-Rod, it pretty much backfired. Dr. Michael Gross said he didn’t even really consider it a second opinion because he didn’t examine Rodriguez, and he did this because he thought it would be fun to have five minutes of fame. Gross, it turns out, was fined $40,000 by the New Jersey attorney general for “failing to adequately ensure proper patient treatment involving the prescribing of hormones including steroids.” Yeah, Alex went for public support to a guy who had his own steroids issue — unreal.
Then it was the guy who went for the second opinion without following proper protocols who had the gall yesterday to say “enough doctors” in putting out a statement without the Yankees’ blessing that he was ready to play today against the Rays. A few hours later, general manager Brian Cashman announced Rodriguez had been examined by another Yankees doctor, would target Aug. 1 for a rehab or simulated game, and — key thing here — A-Rod was on board with the decision. A-Rod then went on with Francesa and indicated he didn’t like the decision, but would go along because “I am an employee and I have to follow my bosses.”
Really? At what point in recent weeks has A-Rod acted like an employee or followed his bosses? Instead, it feels as if he is trying to be an illusionist, distracting folks to look over here so no one notices how little any of the fight with the Yankees has to do with the Biogenesis case.
And, again, it is sad. As opposed to many, I don’t hate Rodriguez. We have spent many hours talking baseball, and in those unguarded moments, I see a passionate human who becomes washed away when — of all things — he tries so hard to make himself look better.
He could have been a great player rather than a sideshow, a clown.
Sad.
joel.sherman@nypost.com