A-Rod Shuns Spotlight, Finds Bliss

NEW YORK -- There had to be close to 50 bodies pressed together in the corner of the Yankees' clubhouse, cameras bumping heads and notebooks battling microphones. The team has a perfectly spacious interview room around the corner, a nice podium where an athlete can stretch and pontificate without a bunch of sweaty reporters pushing close enough to see his nose hairs.

But Alex Rodriguez was perfectly happy to make his way through the chaotic crush and face the media without a buffer. Someone fired a question and, from the back of the pack, all we could make out was, "Jetes ...CC ... they were the story." What about his two RBI singles that twice extended the Yankee lead? "Felt good ... team effort ... great pitching from CC." Was the postseason monkey off his back? "Not about me ... good to contribute ... hey, no need to shove each other."

So it went late Wednesday night, in A-Rod's little corner of bliss. He deflected every query about himself with a gracious nod at his teammates, turning the reflective glare back toward other areas of the Yankees' palatial playground. There was Nick Swisher, gushing about how he could barely restrain himself from going "crazy nuts" after knocking in the go-ahead run in the Yankees' 7-2 win over the Minnesota Twins in Game 1 of the ALDS. There was Sabathia, the big lug of an ace, and Derek Jeter, the cool captain, readying for their turns at the podium. A part of A-Rod has to realize life is much more fulfilling when it's not all about his vanities, his insecurities.

"I think that's the guy you're seeing these days," said Reggie Jackson, who knows what it's like when the ego overloads. "A-Rod is content to let the magic work around him. He can be a big star of the show, but not the only star. I think he's enjoying that role."

We've heard it all before, of course, but this time something rings true about A-Rod's transformation. People around the Yankees say he is more humble, a changed man after enduring what he calls his most difficult season of his career. It began in spring training with the bombshell admission he was a steroid user and rolled over to the start of the season when he underwent an operation on his degenerative hip that sidelined him for five weeks. Given all we know about Rodriguez -- his incessant need for attention, his controversial lifestyle choices, his propensity to always be in the middle of chaotic situations -- who could have predicted Rodriguez would emerge from such a troubling time a better player and, more impressive, a better person?

Count me in as one who's happy to be wrong about A-Rod. After writing about him for a decade, I doubted I'd ever reach a point where he wouldn't trigger a reflexive roll of the eyes. That's the beautiful thing about sports: just when we think we've seen it all, just when we've become jaded to the core, someone does a reverse end-around run and causes our jaws to drop in wonder.

The Yankees haven't won a World Series since Rodriguez arrived on New York's shores, and his personal makeover sure doesn't guarantee they'll even finally make it out of the first round. But fans and media beat up on him enough when he was down, when he couldn't find his way out of tangled bedclothes, whenever the situation was clutch and the Yankees needed a big hit. So isn't it time to at least give him a tip of the hat? All the Yankees did when he returned from surgery was go on a ridiculous 90-44 tear.

That's the beautiful thing about sports: Just when we think we've seen it all, just when we've become jaded to the core, someone does a reverse-end around run and causes our jaws to drop in wonder.
"Man, if we didn't have him we'd be a different team," said Mark Teixeira, whose presence in the No. 3 spot ahead of Rodriguez has dramatically altered the complexion of the Yankee lineup.

The change in A-Rod is sometimes subtle. "Alex has had a lot of fun this year," manager Joe Girardi said. "You say, 'How do you know?' I hear him laughing every day. And it's laughing out loud."

The change in A-Rod is intentionally overt. He stopped taking ridiculous advice from Madonna's handlers who thought they could mold him into a global sporting icon who'd appeal to fans and sponsors on both sides of the pond, a David Beckham without the accent. The minute A-Rod heeded producer Guy Oseary's direction to narcissistically kiss his own reflection in the mirror for a magazine shot -- kiss his own reflection! -- was the minute A-Rod and his team of crazy stylists totally lost it. This was worse than when A-Rod was on the silly end of the infamous slap play with Boston's Bronson Arroyo in the 2004 ALCS. This was staged egomania, complete with bronzer, and it made you realize why some of A-Rod's own teammates tattled to the New York media about his dalliances with strippers a few years back, dalliances that eventually led to his divorce.

Why couldn't he be content being known as a great hitter, perhaps eventually the greatest hitter baseball has ever seen (no matter how the steroid era has muddled that argument)? Didn't his obscene contract worth $300 million over 10 years provide enough security, no matter the childhood hurts he admittedly still struggles to overcome?

During those dark, depressing spring months when even he wondered who he was and what he had done, A-Rod made a wise decision. He stopped speed-dialing the Hollywood advisers and started listening to Yankee media relations folks like Jason Zillo, who knows a bit about crisis management. Together, it was decided A-Rod would refocus his priorities, skip all one-on-one interviews with major media outlets (no more calling Katie Couric to ask for her guidance) and, as he'd learn to say, "let my play do the talking."


"I think it's fair to say that I hit rock bottom this spring, between the embarrassment of the press conference and my career being threatened with the hip injury," Rodriguez told reporters last week. "My career was at a crossroads, and I was either going to stay at the bottom or I was going to bounce back."

"When you take the expectations of 40 [home runs] and 120 [RBI] away, when you miss five or six weeks, you actually focus on the game. You focus on putting the uniform on, on catching a ground ball. That's what I've been doing all year and that's what I'll do in October."

It's been such a cruel month, that wicked October. In the Yankees' last three playoff appearances from 2005-2007 -- first-round knockouts every one -- A-Rod went 2-for-15, 1-for-14 and 4-for-15, had a total of 15 strikeouts and never really swabbed the home crowd's vicious boos from his ears. He entered this October hitless in his last 29 postseason at-bats with runners on base (dating back to the fateful Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series against Boston), frightening numbers that highlighted just how awful A-Rod had been when the weather turned cold and the pressure grew hot.

A-Rod flew out to right field in his first at-bat Wednesday night against the Twins, stranding a runner at second and prompting the corporate-heavy Stadium crowd to shuffle slightly. His next at-bat was another inning-ender, a strikeout in the third inning against rookie pitcher Brian Duensing that left a runner on first. The murmurs grew. "Alex can't always be Superman," Reggie Jackson had said a few hours earlier. "But he's in a good space mentally and physically. The big playoff hits will come. I guarantee it."

Reggie has uttered similar forecasts before -- every October since A-Rod has been a Yankee, in fact. (Well, not last October, seeing as there wasn't much to predict in New York beyond who might make early-morning tee times.)

"Yeah, but I got a good feeling this time," Mr. October said. "He's going to have a good series."

Entering his at-bat in the fifth, another inning when there were two outs, A-Rod had stranded 40 runners since Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS, a game that has yet to stop haunting the Yankees. Now Jeter was dancing off second, the Yankees up by a skinny run. A-Rod planted a single to left-center, chasing Duensing. In the seventh, as the Yankees cruised through the rout, A-Rod drove in Jeter again with a single that banged off the right-field wall. The enormous screen showed Kate Hudson, A-Rod's girlfriend, celebrating with rapper Jay-Z in their field-level seats. His personal life has never seemed less scripted.

"It certainly felt good to get that hit out of the way," A-Rod would say later, after he snaked his way through the media mass, turned his back to his locker and faced his reflection in dozens of camera lenses. For the first time in many Octobers, he must have been content with the image in the glass.