TAMPA — Alex Rodriguez repeated the same on-field routine Tuesday at the Yankees minor league camp that he had done 24 hours earlier.
Stretch, field, hit, run, shower.
Rinse, repeat.
This is spring training — repetitive routines to ready body and mind for the long season ahead. Rodriguez has embraced them even in the best times of his career. He is hardwired to like structure and preparation in his athletic life. Plus, he adores pretty much all that comes with the game, including the mundane choreography.
He is embracing it in an even greater way now as if returning to a lost lover who more than ever offers sanctuary and familiarity and — in this case — maybe some form of rebirth.
For with all that swirls around Rodriguez, he really is in Yankees camp to try to be a major league baseball player again. Whether he breaks and talks in further detail about steroids or strays from the current vanilla script to go to one of those awkward, I-can’t-believe-he-said-it places on the Yankees or the commissioner or Kim Jong-un is part of the forever background noise with this athlete. Those are lurid side stories.
Over two days and roughly 12 minutes with reporters, A-Rod has so far faithfully adhered to the non-controversial sound bites prepped by his media handlers. I can put it all in quotes for you, but suffice to say he is happy to be here, loves everything to do with the Yankees and baseball, and feels badly about all his misbehavior.
I also can be among those who count his swings and homers in batting practice, but that would have the same value as telling you who looked good in a layup line.
Whether he actually can play — the overriding story of this camp — will not be revealed by what he does with 55-mph pitches in batting practice. And what is scary for the Yankees is it might not matter if he can play or not.
Joe Girardi has said A-Rod must fight for his playing time. But both Girardi and Brian Cashman have acknowledged Rodriguez is on the roster. He is owed $61 million over the next three years and, as Cashman said, “that is not something that you take lightly.”
Translation: Ownership is not ready to chow down on that. Thus, Cashman said, “I would be surprised if he looked so bad that is a conversation we need to have. My mindset is he is on the roster.”
It threatens to make A-Rod a “24-and-one” member of a team, but not how one-time Mets general manager Steve Phillips originally offered it 15 years ago — when he imagined having special perks for Rodriguez that separated the player from the rest of the team.
In this scenario, Rodriguez would be essentially a hood ornament, not doing much, as the Yankees try to figure out how to win shorthanded.
And this is why everyone will be focusing on clues if Rodriguez has enough gifts left to have even a narrow role in 2015 — DH against lefties, for example — or more.
Girardi and Cashman both dismissed batting practice and early results, acknowledging rust that has to be shed after A-Rod missed last season. But it is possible his body never will be spryer than right now, his swing never more alive.
When I asked if he were looking for touchstones in spring that he still had it and what he would do if he didn’t, Rodriguez mainly ignored the brunt of the question, saying,
“I think it’s going to be a process. The most important thing is to be patient. It’s going to take at least three or four weeks to start getting a good read on everything. So, patience is key for me.’’
What is more vital is how much bat speed and quick-twitch athleticism remains and whether there is enough there without illegal performance enhancers — if Rodriguez is actually clean, as he says he is — for him to be a contributor or more for the Yankees.
Those routines Rodriguez already has begun will offer some small clues on bat speed, the spring games on the horizon a bit more, the grind of even spring training might say something about his physical endurance. When asked if he thinks the Yankees will have patience through these endeavors to see what he has left, Rodriguez responded, “Those questions, you have to ask them. I just know that I’m here early. I’m really working hard to make the team and if I make the team, I hope to be a productive right-handed hitter.”
With that low bar — productive right-handed hitter — high salary and long odds stacked against him, Rodriguez has fallen into the embrace of the repetition, the sanctuary of routine, the search for the pulse of a major league player.