Afternoon Baseball

ESPN ran their "E-Ticket" series today with the headline, "Why do we hate this guy?" in reference to A-Rod. Funny, maybe they should be asking Steve Phillips this question, since he's obviously beyond professional analysis and into personal spite at this point.
But actually, Eric Neel does a very good job with the piece, proving again that he's the one who learned the most from Ralph Wiley's Page 2 writing (as opposed to say, Skip Bayless, who learned only big words and mistaking bravado for bravery).

Neel also is good enough to ask a couple online Yankees writers (Steve Goldman, Alex Belth), who contribute their own thoughts. Goldman, in particular, exposes the bullshit that is this perverse pride of "Mantle got booed, too, and he took it."

There's a lot of legitimate criticism and examination of Alex Rodriguez to be had. Hell, I just looked at the possibility that A-Rod might be in a permanent career decline, and what that might look like. But look at who I compared him with. One of the top two first basemen ever (Foxx), the greatest natural talent ever (Mantle), the National League's greatest home-run hitter pre-1960 (Ott) and the best player of the 1990s (Griffey). Criticism such as that (and others' much more insightful words) is praise in and of itself, and has a purpose.
But little or no constructive or intelligent criticism is being done by the 50,000+ fans at the stadium, who are rapidly turning into Boston beat writers or Philadelphia fans -- the hate-for-the-sake-of-hating crowd. After all, when I agree with Michael Kay, something's seriously wrong. But doesn't this ring true:

"He's held to an impossibly high standard. I really believe they expect him to get a hit every time up. The guy gets his temperature taken every single at-bat."

I've said many times that the adjustment around A-Rod is more of one we must make to accept him as he is. Neel feels the same way, saying, "It's on us, not him, from here on out."

Labels: A-Rod