“There’s one guy we need to hear from in all this…Suffice it to say, I wasn’t overly surprised to find this nugget in “The Yankee Years”: player agents were often involved in procuring PED for their clients. Granted, it was Brian McNamee making the assertion but it is notable that he also pointed out that general managers had come up to him and said “We don’t care what they’re taking, I just don’t want to know about it.”
Scott Boras.
His agency does far more than represent professional athletes--he is also involved in the minutiae of his clients’ careers. He provides every service imaginable for his stable including psychological counselling. There are doctors, trainers everything required for building up a player to max out whatever talents exist in a given player’s body.
For all his faults, the man provides an incredibly high level of service for the men he represents. He often boasts about how involved his agency is in the professional lives of the players under the umbrella of Borascorp.
Some of the high profile names that have been part of all this in recent years include A-Rod, Ivan Rodriguez, Eric Gagne, Kevin Brown, Rick Ankiel, Gary Sheffield and Barry Bonds.
All have been linked to the sport’s steroid era either through BALCO, positive tests, the Mitchell Report and Jose Canseco’s literary masterpiece “Green Eggs and Deca” (AKA “Juiced”).
For a man so involved in the physical and psychological upkeep of his stable could he possibly have been so ignorant or so blinded to what the players were taking?”
This information made it to George Mitchell’s ears according to McNamee but wasn’t considered pertinent enough to include in the Mitchell Report.
As time goes on it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Mitchell Report was little more than an expensive bit of propaganda for public and government consumption to hopefully put the steroid era into the last tense while pretty much giving management absolution while offering up enough names to make it clear that (1) it was all the greedy players’ fault (2) the problem is now licked and (3) Bud Selig has now officially done everything in his power to rid the sport of the anabolic menace.
I think in the not too distant future we’ll find out more and more about what Mitchell wilfully ignored and that a handpicked member from the side of management produced a tome that reflected the investigator’s vested interests. It was little more than one of Selig’s beloved “Blue Ribbon Reports” he points to that allegedly provide answers to the problems vexing the sport and are always completed with minimal to zero (closer to zero) input from the players’ side.
I just find it odd that nobody seems interested in investigating the agents’ role in all this--then again, that would only happen if they were truly interested in getting to the bottom of things instead of simply creating an illusion that the problem was thoroughly dealt with and eradicated.
Plus ca change.
Jeter…
What’s funny about Torre and Verducci’s recollection is how Derek Jeter is portrayed: the ultimate team player that is ultra focused on winning--the one that leads the way to victory. Throughout the book we see time and again examples of Jeter doing whatever it took on and off the field to ensure that the New York Yankees would ascend to the summit of October baseball. If a teammate needed support--Jeter was there; if a player needed to be set straight it was Jeter that would do so; if Torre needed a message sent to the troops Jeter would be the messenger and if Torre required a change in program he could count on Jeter’s unconditional support to make it work for the betterment of the New York Yankees.
It was always about winning; about the glory of the pinstripes--no matter how difficult the problem or personality of someone on the roster it was Derek Jeter flying to the rescue a la Superman to straighten out the erring teammate and keep the machinery running smoothly.
Jeter was the consummate professional--nothing shook him from the annual goal of winning the World Series and he would lead the way and unclutter the path to October; he would literally do whatever it took, no matter how distasteful to get it done.
However, what became clear is that he had a massive blind spot--Alex Rodriguez. If anyone could’ve eased A-Rod’s transition to the pinstriped empire it was Jeter and I don’t think there’s a person alive that feels that a focused, hitting-on-all-cylinders Alex Rodriguez wouldn’t be a major asset in winning games, series, post season berths and championships.
Yet, something funny happened--it turned out there was something Jeter found more important than winning and that was making sure that Alex Rodriguez knew that he was still ticked over his comments in Esquire. No matter how much A-Rod struggled to fit in, to contribute to the team’s success Jeter seemed quite content to watch Rodriguez struggle in the New York spotlight.
His actions (or inaction) made it clear early, often and repeatedly that the third baseman was on his own and that the fans and the media were free to “have at 'im” with Jeter’s tacit approval. So what if A-Rod’s struggles with himself and his game might cost a few games and even a post season series or two--it seemed for all the world that Jeter now viewed winning as demonstrating on a daily basis that he was the crown prince of the Bronx and Rodriguez wasn’t.
What was worse, is that Torre was reluctant to tell Jeter to man up and do whatever was needed to make Rodriguez feel emotionally settled enough to play at his best. The Yankee roster would try every other solution to help A-Rod get it together, to get his head straight except have Jeter do what he did for so many other struggling teammates.
While Torre/Verducci used up an entire chapter to discuss the problems with Alex Rodriguez it is pretty clear that there was fault from both sides in getting the new arrival to fit in with the team dynamic. After seeing Jeter portrayed as the modern day “Pride of the Yankees” in the early part of the book--especially during the glory years of 1996-2000 we witness what appears to be a stark change in the shortstop once he realizes that he’s king of the mountain.
He reminds us of the alpha female in a high school sophomore class dealing with a new female student that is every bit as pretty as she and feels threatened. While the Yankees might have “lost their way” after the departure of the class of 96-00 it appears that St. Derek might have forgotten what got him to the top in his preoccupation to making sure everyone realized that he now determined who was worthy to wear the fabled pinstripes and would be anointed “a true Yankee.”
Best Regards
John
0 comments:
Post a Comment