Keidel: A-Rod's Career Has Recovered -- And Good Thing Because Yankees Need Him
By Jason Keidel
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The baseball circus known as the Bronx Bombers has shrunk over the years, as the long line of icons and characters fade, flee or retire. But no one doubts the ring leader in 2016 -- Alex Rodriguez.
Has a player ever been more revered and reviled in one career? A-Rod went from the pristine face of the new age, the anti-Sosa who would bring clean veins to the game, to the latest emblem of excess.
Yet despite serving a 162-game suspension for violating the sport's PED policy, A-Rod returned to a Caesar's ovation. Then once he produced prodigious stats, he assumed superhero dimensions. Quite a quick journey back into our hearts.
When Mark Teixeira went down, when Carlos Beltran went down, when the growing army of geriatrics landed on the DL, A-Rod was there, swatting clutch homers, bringing home a conga line of base runners.
He is now impossibly adored. Again. There was no Oprah moment, where he hemorrhaged guilt and truth, when he came entirely clean, detailed his biblical gaffes and begged for our forgiveness. He spoke in opaque terms about mistakes and moving forward. And that was enough, it seems.
For all his errors off the field and acid rain of public sentiment, A-Rod is actually in an enviable position. Again. For the first time in a quarter-century, the Mets are the main team in town. While the media takes a jeweler's eye to the new kings of Queens, the Yankees are well below the radar, no longer choked by epic expectations.
Despite a base salary of $21 million this year and next, for an embellished DH, A-Rod is playing with house money. (Not to mention millions more in bonuses as he climbs the all-time home-run ladder, starting at 687 this year.)
If he can duplicate his 33 homers in 2015 over the next two seasons, he will just miss the tainted throne of home run king. But at this point, passing Barry Bonds would be little more than a case of interchangeable miscreants.
Indeed, the Yankees will need every bit of A-Rod's remaining talent to contend this year. A replica of last year is fine, when he was third among designated hitters in home runs, sixth in RBIs (86), sixth in doubles (22) and fifth in on-base percentage (.356).
Every Yankees starting pitcher spent time on the DL last year, except Luis Severino, who spent the bulk of his season away from the MLB club. Between the variables in the rotation, aging lineup and injury to utility thumper Greg Bird, A-Rod's contributions will be more essential than ever. While everyone marvels at the Yankees' nuclear bullpen, none of it will matter if they can't get the ball to their three-headed fireballer.
It wasn't that long ago that A-Rod stormed into Mike Francesa's studio and swore on a stack of symbolic bibles that he never used PEDs. Now it's unlikely he will even hear that doomed acronym again.
We've always known that an athlete's second chances are often commensurate to their ability to run, pass or swing their way back into good favor. But even by our relaxed morality, A-Rod has enjoyed quite a cultural rebound. Perhaps it says more about our ability to forgive, or, more accurately, our willingness to forget.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel