#F13K YOU A-ROD!
I would like to thank everyone for their feedback and for checking out my columns since I started here, at HipHopShortStop.com. If you haven’t checked out my previous articles, well what are you waiting for? If you have, then you know I’m a devout Yankees, Giants & Rangers fan, with a touch of, “If I’m watching basketball, I hope the Knicks do well.” I tell you this now, because this article is coming from a diehard Yankee fan, one of those Yankee fans who can’t even watch the playoffs if the Yankees are eliminated.
Trust me, I love watching Yankee baseball. I’m 32 years old. I grew up with Don Mattingly as my favorite all-time Yankee and got to witness one of the greatest careers ever in baseball, the Captain, Derek Jeter. Admittedly, while I can watch any NFL or NHL regular season or playoff game, I can really care less about a Pirates vs Padres game in July or KC sweeping the Orioles in October. Baseball has just gotten to be a chore and a bore to watch for me. With no rooting interest or Yankee involvement, I find myself flipping to Seinfeld reruns during innings & being hooked on Kramer than whatever the St. Louis Cardinals are doing.
I feel that here in NY, and again, let me stress that this a NY-centric site and I’m a NY-centric writer, the majority of sports fans do not care about baseball if the Yankees & Mets aren’t playing. Sure, there are fans who are baseball purists in this area, but as a whole, NY can’t be bothered if the local teams aren’t in it. It’s not like the NFL, where the majority of NY sports fans will watch other market teams despite whatever the Giants or Jets are doing.
Since there is no October playoff baseball in New York, the sports media here has already ignored the MLB playoff rounds and maybe there is a blurb somewhere about the Giants & Royals playing in this year’s Fall Classic. The majority of baseball talk in this town is about “Where do the Yankees go from here?” and “Will Harvey be able to lead the Mets pitching staff to a playoff spot?” The papers and radio hosts in this town have already skipped past the playoffs and are talking about next years season already.
One of the big sports stories circulating in NY right now is the Yankees after Derek Jeter. I’ve mentioned previously here on this site, that I’m sick of all the numbers for letters catchphrases. Derek Jeter has the #RE2PECT thing going on and anyone else doing anything similar just comes off cheap and trivializes our Captain. So of course, this is where Alex Rodriguez comes into play, because if there is a chance to get publicity and headlines, A-Rod is all over it.
Bald Vinny, a famous Yankee fan, in the same vein as Jets fan Fireman Ed, Rangers fan Crazy Larry or Mets fan Doris from Rego Park (RIP), is a Yankee bleacher creature, an affectionate term for a diehard Yankee fan who has season tickets, and guess what, sits in the bleachers. Bald Vinny also sells his own merchandise to help off-set his season ticket costs. This is America baby, gotta make those dollars!
Bald Vinny, through his Section203 website, has released a new T-Shirt, with a play off of Jeter’s recent campaign, saying #FORG1V3. The shirt is designed to bring awareness to A-Rod’s comeback, after a one-year suspension for using Performance Enhancing Drugs. Vinny, and the people who buy this, in my opinion, blasphemous and horrendous T-Shirt, are looking past Jeter & hoping A-Rod can save what looks like a tired & broken down team.
I don’t know Vinny, I don’t know what he thinks, what he does or anything else. Perhaps he really is an A-Rod fan. Maybe he’s just that diehard of a Yankee fan that he will support anyone that dons the pinstripes, similar to a diehard NFL fan that supports a player who beats their wife, murders people, smacks kids or performs sodomy. Or maybe he’s just smart, and saw a business opportunity and a way to extend the little fame he has. After releasing this, and again, in my opinion, horrendous piece of merchandise, Vinny was featured on the number 1 sports radio show in all of the world (My opinion again, but come on, check the ratings & the fanbase, it’s a FACT jack!) “Mike’s On” with the sports pope himself, Mike Francesa. On that show, Vinny alluded that A-Rod himself has bought a bundle of these, OPINION TIME AGAIN, pieces of shit.
Let me make it clear. I am not trying to disparage Vinny or his way of making a buck. I harbor no ill-will to the guy and respect his fandom. However, to me, Alex Rodriguez is one of the biggest scumbags and perhaps most unlikable player to not only don a Yankee jersey, but to ever step on a big league field.
Everything Derek Jeter is, Alex Rodriguez is not. Jeter is a winner. A-Rod is not. Jeter is classy. A-Rod is not. Jeter is clutch. A-Rod is not. Jeter is respected and loved. A-Rod is not. Jeter is a charitable man. A-Rod is not. Jeter is refined. A-Rod is not. Jeter avoids tabloids. A-Rod attracts them. Jeter never talks about his personal life. A-Rod’s is front page news. Jeter doesn’t do drugs. A-Rod did. If Derek Jeter is a baseball god, A-Rod is the devil himself.
If you are reading this, you know about the controversies of A-Rod. I will touch on some of them soon. However, I do want to go on record that I do think A-Rod’s latest controversy, his suspension, was the result of a witch-hunt by Bud Selig. I truly believe that Selig, on his way out, wanted to scapegoat someone and that person was A-Rod. Selig, the face of the steroid era, just as much as McGwire, Sosa or Bonds, wanted to leave his office on a high note. He couldn’t punish anyone else and A-Rod was the biggest and perhaps easiest target. There is no doubt in my mind that Selig broke laws (paying cash for information) and went out of his jurisdiction in a hell-bent manner to get his man. While I think A-Rod is scum, Selig is no better & definitely singled A-Rod out.
For the Yankee fan, the biggest deal with A-Rod, until the recent suspension, was his play on the field. Being the highest paid player in the sport and being a pioneer in the mega-millions 10-year deal contracts means fans want results. Going 0-21 in playoff series is not going to cut it. Since A-Rod joined the Yankees in 2003, he’s had only one good playoff series, the 2009 ALCS. You can argue the Yankees don’t even win the 2009 World Series if it wasn’t for A-Rod’s play in the ALCS. But A-Rod isn’t getting $250 Million for 10 years to only play well in one series. Fans want consistency.
A-Rod has always been a lightening rod of controversy. It’s more than enough to make even the most diehard Yankee fan despise him. And sadly, I don’t even know what A-Rod could do to repair his relationship with the fans and the public.
A-Rod, perhaps a compiler when it comes to stats, is a superior athlete. However, his playoff failures did not only irk just fans, but his teammates as well. Before 2009, A-Rod’s nickname in MLB clubhouses was “The Cooler”, because teams would be cold when he was there and would get hot once he left. The Yankees legendary Joe Torre, in his own book, also released in 2009, said A-Rod was known as “A-Fraud”, by his teammates and other team personnel. Even his own co-workers couldn’t stand A-Rod!
I’m not going to give you the year-by-year breakdowns of A-Rod’s terrible post-season numbers. It’s a fact. If you need the exact stats, check out the back of his baseball card. The “A-Fraud” nickname, that was created by his own team, just encompasses the albatross Rodriguez was in playoff baseball.
While A-Rod’s personal life and rotating door of women have been fodder for the tabloids, the biggest controversy in A-Rod’s career is the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The first wind fans got of A-Rod’s rampant drug use was through Jose Canseco’s tell-all book in 2007. The book, panned and ridiculed by the media & players at the time, wound up being the first piece of the puzzle that got the ball rolling on all the drug users in baseball. You can trace all these suspensions, new rules, drug testing and everything else, back to this book. Of course, when confronted about the book, A-Rod denied using steroids and any other PED. To quote the great Maury Povich, “THAT WAS A LIE.”
The lying from A-Rod would just never stop in the ensuing years. Despite books dedicated to the topic (Game of Shadows), articles, TV reports, word-of-mouth, A-Rod would deny, deny, deny. Even when he ultimately went down this year, he fought it tooth and nail. A-Rod sued the MLB. He sued the Yankees. He was like a cheap jew that tripped on a broken piece of sidewalk. He was Oprah, “AND YOU GET A LAWSUIT, AND YOU GET A LAWSUIT AND YOU GET A LAWSUIT!”
During this time, and in perhaps in the biggest tragedy of this whole story, A-Rod did an hour long interview, with his lawyer as well, on the Mike Francesa show, that not only aired on WFAN radio, but on the YES television network. The Yankees own YES. A-Rod buried the Yankees & Mike defended his buddy. They even “bro-hugged” for the cameras. It would be this interview that led to YES dumping Francesa from their network for their corporate puppet Michael Kay. To this day, the Mike Francesa simulcast on Fox Sports has been a complete shit-show. Thanks a lot A-Rod!
Months later, all the lawsuits would eventually be dropped. A-Rod would finally man-up and serve his suspension. But it wasn’t because he wanted to or thought he deserved it, it was because if he kept going on the way he was going on, he risked being blackballed. A-Rod still has 3 years on his deal and has a cash-heavy incentive laden contract. He’s 6 homeruns from a $10 Million bonus. He’s got bigger bonuses coming up, if he can surpass his fellow brother in steroids, Barry Bond’s homerun record. There is tons and tons of money on the table and A-Rod is not going to walk away from it.
A-Rod lied to everyone. He came off like a prima-donna. While he was singled out by Selig, the fact that he was such a scumbag before all this made it easier for Selig to push his weight on this situation. But he didn’t just lie & cheat in his professional life, he did it in his personal life as well.
A-Rod, who was married in 2002, would go on to sire two kids with his wife Cynthia. However, 5 years later, A-Rod would be all over the newspapers, for having an affair with a sleazy stripper. Again, this is something Derek Jeter would never be involved with. Jeter is beloved by all. A-Rod truly is the “Anti-Jeter”.
After publicly cheating on his wife and embarrassing his children, A-Rod embraced being a fornicator out of wed-lock. He enjoyed the spotlight and dumped his wife. He would continue to date strippers, or to clean that up, “exotic professionals.” He would later go on to date Madonna. A-Rod’s infidelity would continue as there was a stripper that went public saying she banged A-Rod in 2004, less than 2 years after A-Rod’s marriage. The Daily News, of NY, would also report that A-Rod had sex with hookers. To be clear, they weren’t Hunts Point hookers, but “call-girls”, you know, the girls the Republicans pay for during their scandals.
Eventually, his personal life in every paper, A-Rod’s wife would divorce him. A-Rod, embracing his “freedom”, would then go on to date Kate Hudson, Cameron Diaz and Torrie Wilson. Derek Jeter, no stranger to dating celebrities either, never had his relationships flaunted all over the media like A-Rod. Jeter wasn’t a philander and most importantly, unlike A-Rod, never married. Women love Derek Jeter. Men respect him. Women do not respect A-Rod and men hate him.
Just look at A-Rod. For the fans on the field, he’s a failure. For fans and purists of the sport, he’s a liar and a cheat. In his personal life, he’s also a liar and a cheat. He has ruined the game and many lives. He’s an ego-maniac, that is obsessed with his self-image but is his own worst enemy. The Yankees lost an icon this season. The Return of A-Rod era has begun. As a Yankee fan, this is not an era I can embrace, but I will always root for the pin-striped jersey. A-Roid is back & he’s sure to invade our space soon.
For me, A-Rod is one of the most despicable players to ever wear the Yankee jersey. He is everything that this franchise’s history is not. He couldn’t be more wrong to be the face of this club after Jeter. Good numbers or not, A-Rod will never have the fans adoration.
FORG1V3? NEVER! F13K YOU A-FRAUD!
Comments, questions, feedback and the like can be sent to:
Sean McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com
@NYCTHEMIC
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