We don't need Torre, we have his clone.
I'm all for A-Rod coming to Shea, but not if this prevents the Mets from taking care of other glaring deficiencies, like that horrible bullpen. I wouldn't get upset if the Mets get him, but he's not the only big fish out there, and if they're not talking to other free agents like Torii Hunter or even Mariano Rivera, then they'll be in the same boat they were in at the end of the season.
Even a pitcher can last into their 40's. Glavine and Clemens are the first two that come to mind.
I want to agree...but I can't.
A-Rod is an entertainer. What he's doing is no different than when the cast of 'Friends' signed that blockbuster (then) deal of $1 per episode. No different than Celine Dion getting $100 to perform at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. No different than retired F1 driver Michael Schumacher, who at one time was the second highest paid athlete, receiving $80 mil a year. No different than the Los Angeles Galaxy paying David Bekham $250 to play in the U.S. No different than Howard Stern getting over half a billion from XM to take his show to satellite. And it's questionable whether or not the employers of the last two names can even make enough money to pay them.
So why all of this hatred towards A-Rod? He's not a toxic personality to the clubhouse like Terrell Owens was to San Francisco and Philadelphia. He's not gutless or heartless, we've seen that when he talked Torre into putting him back into the lineup after a hamstring injury could've taken him out of at a time when the Yankees needed him, and he responded the next night by blasting two
home runs in the same inning against Seattle. He's not overrated, you can
see it for yourself. He's not as big a
choke artist as people make him out to be (folks have short memories about how well he was playing in the '04 ALCS before the whole team crashed and burned). To my knowledge, he's not an asshole in public (he pulls kids out of the path of
speeding trucks for crying out loud.
I just don't get why people are upset that Alex Rodriguez is out there trying to see what the free agent market can bring in? On a fundamental level, it's what everybody does when they're job hunting and they know they're shit hot at what they do. Call me crazy, but A-Rod seeking a $350M deal has no impact on my day-to-day life. If he signs with a team for $35M or even $35, the money a team saves isn't going to come my way. The league has no salary cap, so it's not going to affect the ability of other players to maximize their value, and as we've already seen from teams like the Yankees and Mets, dumping dollars doesn't mean you can buy your way into a dynasty.
I'm no A-Rod apologist, I just don't see any good reason to hate this man.