The camera in center field caught the full picture of Alex Rodriguez on Tuesday night, present and past. As Rodriguez turned and blasted his fifth homer of the postseason, there was agent Scott Boras, peeking over A-Rod's shoulder, standing in his private box, right in the middle of everything. In the two-dimensional image, it looked as if Boras could have whispered in A-Rod's ear.
But then A-Rod moved up the first-base line and Boras went out of the picture, and it was all about the baseball, as it really has been since Sports Illustrated reported in February that Rodriguez had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003.
It might have been this way all along, of course, if not for the unnecessarily ostentatious contract negations of 2000, the requests for special 24-and-1 treatment, the strangely demeaning comments made about peers like
Derek Jeter, the appalling leak of Rodriguez's intention to opt out of his Yankees contract in the midst of the 2007 World Series.
It might have always been about the baseball, because he has always been an iconic player. Rodriguez didn't need an agent or a contract or special contractual requests to tell anybody that, and never has. He has always cared deeply about excelling, and he has always prepared diligently and played hard, and has performed at a historic level. If it had always been all about the baseball, he would be regarded as perhaps the greatest ever.
But for years, all of that other superfluous stuff seemed to get in the way; he was always forced to deal with hurdles he and his camp had created for him.
The revelation about his past steroid use and his submission admission, however, ended his quixotic pursuit of acceptance. Once that came out, he was never going to achieve the type of status that he and Boras seemed to pursue.
Maybe Rodriguez recognized this. The other day, he gently chased off writers as they searched for answers about how and why he has changed, telling them only that he's in a very good place. He has told friends that he is a happier person now than he had been, away from the baseball field. Good for him. He is letting his play speak for itself, and his play is extraordinary.
Maybe this is the way it needed to be for him; maybe he needed to take a meandering journey to get to where he is now. But he deserves credit for making the adjustments he has made -- the at-arms-length manner in which he's dealt with the media this year, his subtle retreat in his public persona, whatever else he has done -- because he could have simply barreled along the same path without change.
For more from Buster on the Yanks-Angels, the Phillies-Dodgers, and a call for instant replay, you must be an Insider.
Buster Olney
