ALEX RODRIGUEZ, LUCY & CHARLIE BROWN'S FOOTBALL

Admit it, even though it was an out,  and a DP to boot, you all had the same thought after Alex hit that rocket up the middle in the first inning; Alex Rodriguez is finally coming out of it.  He actually hit the ball on the nose.  It took a tremendous dive by Robert Andino to rob him of an RBI single that would have changed the whole feel of the game.  So when he came up for his next at bat, I expected him to do something big.  He didn’t.  Alex continued to do nothing the rest of the game and whiffed to make the last out.

Alex has become Lucy with the football and we’re all Charlie Brown.  We hope and hope and hope.  We make ourselves believe that "THIS TIME" it will be different.  Then, like Charlie Brown, we run up to kick it and end up flat on our fannies as Alex walks back to the dugout.  Look, we all know he doesn’t want to fail.  We all know he wants to make us happy and he wants to do good for the team... He wants to “kick the football.”  In fact, he wants to make us leap out of our seats, high five each other and lose our sanity as we watch him launch a bomb into the October night as John Sterling yells, “It is high! It is far! It is gone! An A Bomb from ARod!!! And the Yankees take the lead!!!!”   He wants to be our hero as much as we want and need him to be our hero.  But as I tell my kids, we live in the real world.  We don’t have Hollywood writers to script our moments.  We have to accept reality, deal with it and at times, suck it up and overcome it.  That means making adjustments and concessions when they are in order.

Does anyone not believe that Joe Girardi, Brian Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner haven’t spent every waking moment trying to figure out what to do with their $30 million man?  We can imagine the conversations after Monday night:

“We gotta move him down in the order” 

“But his ego and pride can’t handle it – look at what happened when Joe T moved him to the 8 hole in ’07.”

“But he is proof of Stephen Hawking’s theory that black holes exist.  Problem is, that hole is batting third in our order.” 

“Well…let’s give him one more night…”

But how do you move Alex?  I mean, would you move Babe Ruth? Lou Gehrig? Joe DiMaggio? Mickey Mantle?  It’s not that easy when you’re talking about one of the most prodigious offensive talents of all time.  We’d all like to believe we could be that cut-throat.  But while we’re busy screaming at our televisions every time Alex strikes out, Girardi is sitting in the dugout having a massive anxiety attack over this, trust me.

So what to do?  Only Alex can fix this.  Alex could make it a hell of a lot easier on everyone if he simply came to Joe, Cash and Hal and stated the obvious: “I’m hurting the team and we don’t have any more time.  Move me to the 7 or 8 hole until I start to hit.  Robbie should be batting third because Jeet and Ichiro are on base all the freakin’ time.  And Robbie is our beast. My glove is still good and I really believe that I’ll come out of my hitting funk if I’m down in the order.”  Do that Alex and I think we'd all fall in love again...That’s what a hero would do.

After ’09, I swore I would support Alex from then on no matter what. Even BYB has a fascination with Alex, but even BYB is getting fed up.  We all knew that he would never live up to his salary as he aged.  But it’s not about the money.  The top brass made that decision and it actually worked and brought us a World Championship in 2009.  But every year is about the new championship and once again, it’s about the now.  No one team in either league is unbeatable.  But as long as Alex continues to fail, the Yankees will remain more beatable than any other team.  And that means another first round exit. I can't bare to watch that again.
It's unacceptable.

NEWSFLASH: Baseball is a team sport.  Time to put the team and the fans ahead of egos and feelings.  Time for Alex to man up and demand to be dropped in the line-up, ON HIS OWN.  Or time for Joe, Cash and Hal to make the move for him no matter the hurt feelings or public relations fallout.

The O’s are starting a stud righty tonight, Miguel Gonzalez.  Perfect excuse to insert Robinson Cano in the 3 hole and find a place for Alex somewhere down the line behind Curtis Granderson.

And message to Alex... there’s not a real Yankee fan out there that doesn’t want you to succeed.  Any bad feeling we had about you prior to 2009 is gone.  We’ve all grown up.  But we need you to state the obvious and help the team by taking the decision out of Joe’s hands.  Move yourself.  And do it today, for the Yankees, for you and for the fans....trust me, you do it and we all win... and you start hitting, no pressure!

--Chris Kram, BYB Contributor



Please comment, we have DISQUS, it's easier than ever. Let me know what you think and follow me on Twitter @BleednYankeeBlu and join the group Bleeding Yankee Blue on Facebook, just type it in.