New Yorkers who follow baseball are up in arms over the meltdown of the Yankees, but not Mayor Bloomberg.
The mayor refused to criticize the highly-paid team, which lost four straight in the latest round of playoffs and never lead in a single game, on the grounds that the players gave it their all.
“My youngest daughter once gave me a lecture about people on the field, the people on the stage, the people writing that book, the people doing radio shows– they’re trying,” Bloomberg said on his weekly WOR radio program.
“And if any of us can do it better, we can go in that business.”
The mayor even defended Alex Rodriguez, the super slugger whose dismal performance got him benched at the most crucial stage of the post-season.
“People say A-Rod isn’t trying,” said Bloomberg. “He’s a guy with enormous pride. He’s got an ego and he’s got reason to be — he’s a great athlete. He wants to hit a home run more than the team and the fans want him to hit a home run.”
If there’s one sport where the players need to do better, it’s basketball, according to Bloomberg.
“I’ve never understood why they didn’t make every free throw,” he said. “You and I in golf, the air is different, the wind is different, the slope is different, the kind of grass is different.”
The basketball court, noted Bloomberg, never changes.
Hockey, another major indoor sport, didn’t come up in the discussion.