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In a change for baseball, A-Rod says something

An article in The New Yorker this week (and last week, this being a well-deserved double issue) sorts out some misconceptions when it comes to famous quotations.

Sherlock Holmes never said “Elementary, my dear Watson.” Neither Ingrid Bergman nor anyone else in “Casablanca” says “Play it again, Sam”; Leo Durocher did not say “Nice guys finish last”; Vince Lombardi did say “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” quite often, but he got the line from someone else. Patrick Henry almost certainly did not say “Give me liberty, or give me death!”; William Tecumseh Sherman never wrote the words “War is hell”; and there is no evidence that Horace Greeley said “Go west, young man.”

Yogi Berra is mentioned in the piece as well, quite amusingly, in fact: “… when Yogi Berra said ‘I didn’t really say everything I said’ he was correct.”

But at least it’s refreshing to think that athletes and coaches once said something of substance when interviewed. Talking to high school football players after a game can often be painful for a reporter, and the media coaching scene in Bull Durham was funny because it’s true. Baseball America does us a service when it recaps the minor league season each September with some of the best quotations from some of the game’s best prospects.

So it was news today when Alex Rodriguez spoke frankly about his relationship with Derek Jeter and how it is no longer as tight as it once was. I particularly liked when he spoke freely about his contract: “I love being the highest-paid player in the game. It’s pretty cool. I like making that money.”

Personally, I’m not sure if this Rodriguez-New York relationship can work, but I did admire the player before he joined The Empire, and I’d prefer not to hate him, even if I hate the Yankees. Sadly, he’ll enter the Hall of Fame as a Yankee, but at least he’ll reclaim the all-time home run crown and remove the stain that is sure to affix itself sometime this season when it’s no longer held by Hank Aaron. And then, by the time Albert Pujols is done, it might be held by a Cardinal for the first time since Babe Ruth knocked Roger Connor down a notch.

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2 Comments

  1. I saw that interview. A-Rod and Derek aren’t best buddies anymore. Wow! Really? I could give a crap. It is the fact that stories like this lead the Sportscenter broadcast that make people hate New York sports teams. New York already thinks it is the center of the universe and that nothing ever happens anywhere else. Add to that this constant concern about the personal lives of the sports fans in those cities being the most important sports news of the day and you can see why people just want the whole island to drift out into the sea and live off its own bloated self-importance.

  2. Of course, I do like A-Rod and Jeter as baseball players and am in constant awe of their skills. I would like to see A-Rod reclaim the Home Run title from the ignominy that Bonds is about to place it in. You mention Albert Pujols. Do you think that he is naturally that big? He kind of has that monster huge physique that Big Mac had when he was on his tear to a single season record. You know, the time that he is not here to talk about? (I have been having my doubts about Albert from the beginning. I think its distinctly possible that he juiced himself up at an early age so unlike Big Mac, Sosa and Bonds, we have no before and after pictures to compare with.)

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