DUNEDIN, Fla. – It must be some kind of gift to be so good at something, to be this good at this thing, to be able to close out the world, to turn one deaf ear to the boos and another one to the cheers, to elevate a wall tracing the 1,728 square inches that comprise a batter’s box.
“This is what I do better than anything else in the world,” Alex Rodriguez said late yesterday afternoon, behind the third-base grandstand at Dunedin Stadium, his workday complete and his mind uncluttered, dressed in a maroon sweatsuit, eager to hop into the maroon SUV that would transport him back across the bay to Tampa – an SUV driven by none other than Yuri Sucart, reprising his role as Cousin Oliver.
It is what he does better than anyone in the world, too, even now, even after the month he’s had, even after the swirl that follows him like a Kansas twister, even with half the fans inside this quaint community ballpark swearing by him and the other half swearing at him. Even with the prospect of an uncomfortable conversation with baseball investigators looming.
Even with all of that.
When he stepped to the plate in the top of the first inning yesterday, the first time he’s faced a pitcher in anger since last September, he heard a loud ovation of support and a louder sea of derision. He stared at five pitches, four of them balls. Every so often a heckler would scream “Madonna!” as Brett Cecil, the Blue Jays’ starting pitcher, delivered a fastball. Every so often, someone would squeal, “I love you, Alex!”
“Take it deep!” came a cheer from the left-field side of the ballpark, heavy with Yankees shirts, Yankees hats and Yankees pennants.
“Take a needle!” came a jeer from the right-field side of the yard, where a dozen different caps and insignias of various affiliations were represented.
By the fourth inning, the game now tied at 1-1, he took three more pitches, fouled off a fourth from lefty Ricky Romero (the first time all day he had taken the bat off his shoulders), listened to someone screech, “A-Fraud!” and heard someone else respond with “Hall of Fame!”
Then he clobbered the next pitch he saw high and deep and far and long over the left-field wall, over an advertisement for a credit union, maybe 20 feet from a big sign that said, “Hit it Here and Win!” although the type underneath was too small to know what, exactly, he would have won.
As Rodriguez circled the bases, head down, the boos vanished, evaporated like a desert mirage. Half the yard stood and applauded, and chanted “A-Rod! A-Rod!” Reggie Jackson – who ate dinner with Rodriguez on Tuesday night – shook A-Rod’s hand, laughing at his own prescience.
Mr. October embracing Mr. February.
He would get one more at-bat, staring at four balls in the fifth inning with men on second and third and none out, maybe getting an early peek at how pitchers are going to treat him if he keeps treating them so inhospitably. His day’s work read thusly: two walks, one home run, a 1.000 batting average for the spring, a 1.000 on-base-percentage, a 4.000 slugging percentage. If he was looking for a fast start, he got one.
As he chatted with the media afterward, returning again and again to the theme of ballpark as sanctuary, the crowds serenaded him with love, begged him to return for autographs, and he did, signing a few dozen balls and hats and programs, holding onto his asylum a few minutes longer, before jogging away, opening the door to the SUV and hopping in the back seat as Sucart drove away, the two of them perhaps stopping at a convenience store along the way to buy a few packs of Tic-Tacs.
“This wasn’t really any different for me,” he insisted. “I’ve heard reactions like this for a decade now. This has actually been my most relaxing spring.”
Maybe he even believes that. As long as he stays within the friendly confines of the batter’s box – during the sanctuary of spring rather than the sauna of autumn, anyway – it’s possible to believe anything about Alex Rodriguez.