If this was the end, Alex Rodriguez's Yankees finale was a fitting goodbye
One of the most important lessons I learned as a baseball writer – and I can’t remember who taught it to me – is that you never tell a player when to retire. The decision is intensely personal, not something for others to judge.
So, I’m not going to say that Alex Rodriguez should retire – or more accurately, stop playing. If he retired he would need to renounce the remaining $27 million on his contract, which is not something any rational person would do.
Still, Rodriguez seemed to realize Friday night that he would never have it this good again, not if he signs with the Marlins, White Sox or some other club after the Yankees pass him through release waivers, a 48-hour process that will begin Saturday.
This was the ending A-Rod wanted, if not necessarily the ending he deserved. As he said before the game, “With all my screwups and how badly I acted, the fact that I’m walking out the door and Hal (Steinbrenner) wants me as part of the family, that’s hitting 800 home runs for me.”
But is it?
Rodriguez’s finale with the Yankees went almost perfectly, at least after the thunder and lightning that wiped out his pre-game ceremony. A dark cloud appeared over the stadium as the festivities began, almost as if on cue. Rodriguez got a kick out of how the storm seemed a fitting summary of his career, joking with me before our interview on FOX, “It’s perfect – I’m a lightning rod!”
Things got better from there – much better.
Rodriguez drove in the Yankees’ first run with a trademark RBI double to right-center. And in the ninth inning, manager Joe Girardi felt comfortable enough with a 6-3 lead to insert A-Rod at third base, only to remove him after one batter so he could exit to one last roar from the crowd.
But the question lingered. The question will continue to linger. As touching as the final moments were – Rodriguez scooping up dirt at third base as a keepsake, then embracing his two young daughters in the middle of his post-game interview with the YES Network – no one truly knew if this was the end.
Tyler Kepner of the New York Times popped the question again in the middle of Rodriguez’s post-game news conference, a variation of the question people had been asking him all week.
“Alex, in your heart, do you think you’ve played your last major-league baseball game?” Kepner asked.
Rodriguez replied, “Tyler, I’ve got to tell you, it’s going to be tough to top that. That’s a memory that I will own forever.”
Later, A-Rod added this: “With all the things that I’ve been through, to have an ending like tonight, I don’t know what else a man can ask for.”
And this: “I saw (Yankees rookie catcher) Gary Sanchez have a series in Boston. I looked at him and said, ‘I can’t do that anymore.’ And I was happy about it. I’m at peace.”
Sounds like A-Rod is taking the hint, right? Well, he still hasn’t uttered the “R” word, or anything close to it. So who knows?
As much as Rodriguez blathers on about his affection for Yankees pinstripes, the bottom line is that he’s four homers shy of 700 and likely believes that he can still play, even if all of the available evidence suggests otherwise.
The truth is, almost all players struggle to accept the ends of their careers, superstar players especially. These guys are who they are in part because of their unwavering faith in their own abilities. Rodriguez is no different, even if he often comes off as insecure.
In his own words, his final week with the Yankees was “incredibly awkward” and “disappointing,” Girardi promising him that he would play all three games in Boston, then going back on his word, creating tension between the two.
Rodriguez follows through on an RBI double during the first inning. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
Guiding a fading star toward a graceful farewell is perhaps a manager’s most difficult task. A-Rod being A-Rod, he presented different complications than the retiring Yankees legends who preceded him - Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter.
The strain of the week wore on Girardi, and all of his emotions came out after Friday night’s game, with the manager repeatedly breaking down as he spoke about Rodriguez. It was one of Girardi’s best moments with the Yankees, and certainly his best news conference.
“If this is the last time he plays,” Girardi said, pausing, choking up, trying to find the right words, “I wanted it to be something he never forgot.”
Girardi succeeded in that quest, broaching the idea of playing third base to Rodriguez after A-Rod’s inning-ending groundout in the seventh. Rodriguez had taken grounders at third in Boston, and Girardi did not like what he saw. But if he used Rodriguez at third for one batter with a three-run lead, even an error could not have brought the tying run to plate.
Rodriguez joked afterward that his first appearance at third since May 19, 2015 produced some unusual stress – he had “retired” his protective cup after Girardi made him a full-time DH.
He added that he told Yankees closer Dellin Betances the same thing that Cal Ripken Jr. told Roger Clemens after A-Rod famously moved from shortstop to third to allow Ripken to play short in his final All-Star Game in 2001: “Strike him out.”
Betances did, Ronald Torreyes emerged from the dugout to play third and Rodriguez left the field for the final time as a Yankee, embracing teammates along the way as the crowd chanted his name.
(Adam Hunger/AP)
The scene was downright unimaginable two years ago, when Rodriguez sued everyone in sight, including his own union and the Yankees’ team physician, while trying to overturn his suspension for the entire 2014 season.
As Rodriguez told me in our post-game interview, “I’ve put these fans through a lot. I’ve disappointed a lot of people.” But on Friday night, he was the darling of those fans, accepted as a Yankee like never before.
I won’t tell Rodriguez to retire. I can’t tell him to retire. But yes, it’s going to be difficult to top that ending.
The man said it himself.
