Alex Rodriguez and the New York Yankees are like an old married couple that has grown to hate each other and wants a divorce, but are being forced to stay together for the sake of the kids.
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That’s how bad this situation has gotten between the two sides. It’s clear the Rodriguez and his camp hate the Yankees, and the Yankees are showing that they don’t want anything to do with Rodriguez.
Let’s start from the beginning. A-Rod tweeted out that he was ready to start playing in rehab games again, and Yankees GM Brian Cashman told him to, “Shut the f*#k up.”
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Cashman was against signing A-Rod to the lucrative 10-year, $275 million dollar from the get-go, and was the only one who said the Yankees would be better off letting him go. Who can blame him now? Clearly Cashman was the only one in the Yankees organization at the time that saw Rodriguez as a declining player with a deteriorating body that could never live up to the contract.
Moving forward, Rodriguez began his rehab assignment and struggled early on. However, he hit a couple of home runs in his final few games in the minors and was ready to see some major league action – until he pulled himself out of his final minor league game with an injury. Yankees’ doctors gave Rodriguez a MRI and it showed that Rodriguez had suffered a Grade 1 sprain in his quad. Coincidentally, Derek Jeter suffered the same injury in his first game back in the majors.
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The recovery time for a Grade 1 quad strain is usually 7-10 days, but Rodriguez claimed he was ready to return just 4 days later. He was so sure about it that he got a second opinion on the MRI from Dr. Michael L. Gross, who said Rodriguez didn’t have a quad sprain and should be able to play. Jeter trusted the Yankees’ doctors, but clearly A-Rod didn’t.
Dr. Gross, who works at Hackensack University Medical Center, said Rodriguez was his patient even though he had never examined him before, which is a little bit fishy. On top of that, New Jersey’s board of medical examiners reprimanded Dr. Gross earlier this year for mishandling steroid prescriptions.
Only A-Rod could find a random doctor in Hackensack, New Jersey that had some sort of connection to steroids. It’s pure comedy. In the midst of the whole biogenesis scandal, A-Rod finds another doctor in a town that 99% of the country has never even heard of that is somehow related to steroids. You couldn’t make this up if you tried.
So now, A-Rod claims he’s healthy and ready to play in the majors, and the Yankees could desperately use him in their lineup. Even if he is a shell of what he used to be, he’s better than David Adams or Brent Lillibridge.
The Yankees obviously would love to find a way to avoid paying A-Rod the rest of his contract. He is owed nearly $100 million dollars over the next four seasons, and he clearly isn’t that type of player now. However, the Yanks are fighting for a playoff spot and whether Yankees fans like it or not, A-Rod will help them win some games.
If A-Rod really thinks the Yankees are trying to keep him from playing, then he needs to come out and say it himself instead of leaking information to certain reporters and going behind the organizations back.
Until then, this situation is going to continue to get uglier and uglier.
When a couple that should be getting divorced stays together for the sake of the kids, the situation often gets worse and worse until it blows up in everyone’s face. And that’s the exact path the marriage between the Yankees and Alex Rodriguez are on right now.
