October 30, 2007 – Upon hearing the news, Steinbrenner — now the figurehead of the Yankees’ baseball operations — sent a scathing message Rodriguez’s way.“It’s clear he didn’t want to be a Yankee,” Steinbrenner told the New York Daily News. “He doesn’t understand the privilege of being a Yankee on a team where the owners are willing to pay $200 million to put a winning product on the field.
“I don’t want anybody on my team that doesn’t want to be a Yankee.”
Steinbrenner also answered the question of whether there’s any chance he could change his mind. “We’re not going to back down,” he said. “It’s goodbye.”
Hank, while you might not want a player around who doesn’t want to be there, I don’t want anyone owning my team that can’t hold their own ground during a negotiation. And what is this bullshit about not understanding the privelege? What privelege would that be? The privelege of being the best player in the game, and possibly the best ever before it’s all said and done? The privelege of moving to third base so a defensive butcher with an outsized sense of entitlement could continue to cost the team runs with his increasingly mediocre glovework? The privelege of being eviscerated in print media for hitting “just” a solo homerun in a game your team trailed by four, all the while Captain Clutch grounds into three double plays? The privelege of being booed for stats taken out of context in small sample sizes and pilloried for hitless strings of four, five, even SIX at-bats?
Were I the best shortstop to play baseball, I would give the Steinbrenner brothers a message similar to that which my wife wore on a tshirt earlier in the year.
Dan
Tags: alex rodriguez, baseball, spineless cowards, yankees
