In the end it wasn’t about home runs, Madonna, Kate Hudson or anything else. It was about trust. Along the way, Alex Rodriguez learned to trust himself on and off the field, and that has made all the difference.
“The biggest difference for me is to be able to trust all my teammates,” Rodriguez said on the eve of his first World Series, “to know that if they walk me, more likely than not, I’m going to score a run.”
He has scored 10 of them so far in the postseason, the most on the club. If he keeps scoring runs, the Yankees will beat the Phillies to win their 27th World Championship.
“My dream has always been to win a championship and help bring a championship back to the Steinbrenner family,” A-Rod said.
There have been 104 World Series played. It’s an event that will go on with or without Rodriguez. The World Series always has been about the greatest players performing on the greatest stage. In that respect, the World Series needs A-Rod more than A-Rod needs the World Series.
The Series needs flash and dash and Alex Rodriguez sure can entertain the big room. In February, when he was in a tent in Tampa talking about Boli, his cousin, and the dumb things he did, a lot of people wanted to run Rodriguez out of baseball. Now he is the Yankees savior.
A-Rod’s gone from pariah to messiah in eight months. That’s the beauty of baseball. It’s a game of second, third and fourth chances. Every night you get that in the batter’s box. A-Rod has made the most of his new opportunity and his teammates have stuck by him.
All you have to do is look at Rodriguez’ left wrist to see how far he has come. It wasn’t too long ago that he was wearing a Kabbalah bracelet on that wrist. Now he wears a Yankees bracelet.
Rodriguez said he took a hard look at his life in spring training, saying he hit “rock bottom.” He said he had enough of hitting his head against the wall.
“I’ve definitely rediscovered the joy of playing baseball again,” he said.
Remember all that stuff about how A-Rod and Derek Jeter’s worlds would never come together? Here’s what Rodriguez had to say about Jeter yesterday when asked about the two shortstops in this series, Jimmy Rollins and Jeter.
“That’s two Hall-of-Fame shortstops, two great leaders. You can’t say enough about our guy, he’s the Captain,” Rodriguez said. “He’s had the best year of his career, and he’s done a tremendous job of leading our team behind the scenes. I couldn’t be more proud of Derek Jeter.”
That’s a lot better than when I had asked him about being Jose Reyes’ teammate in the WBC and Alex responded without thinking and said, “I wish he was leading off on our team.”
Rodriguez has matured, and no matter how he performs in this World Series, he has been a tremendous success this year. By the way, he’s batting .438 this postseason.
Nick Swisher said the Yankees are proud of Rodriguez.
“To be able to be out there for that day and to help him get through that tough time was definitely a huge thing for all of us, we were happy to be there,” he said of A-Rod’s apology day in Tampa.
“He knew that we had his back from Day 1 and we continue to have his back now,” Swisher said. “He’s been in that happy mode since he came back. Alex has gone through a lot of things this year and has battled hard. I think that just goes to show you what type of player that he is to be able to overcome all of that stuff and finish the way he has.”
Trust me, A-Rod is not done yet. Starting tonight, there’s still that first World Series to be won. It’s time to trust in A-Rod.