USA Today's Hal Bodley plays passive aggressive games regarding the Alex Rodriguez opt-out situation, saying that if he were A-Rod he'd opt out, if he were the Yankees he wouldn't negotiate with Rodriguez and that, despite all of that, Rodriguez is a greedy bum for considering it in the first place. OK, fine. Hal's old, so we'll cut him some slack.What has me scratching my head, though, is this comment:
Plus, if A-Rod does decide to opt out, he undoubtedly will already have a deal in place with another team. No player, regardless how good, would walk away from $81 million without another guarantee.
How could Rodriguez have "another guarantee" prior to opting out absent a violation of the anti-tampering rules? No, I'm not so naive to assume that never occurs, but I can't really imagine it occurring with Rodriguez who, assuming he opts out, will be the highest profile free agent signing in the history of the game. You don't think the Yankees won't complain if it comes to light that Arte Moreno or Mike Illitch or, hell, Mark Cuban reaches a wink-wink agreement with Rodriguez during the World Series? You don't think that such agreements, if they occurred, wouldn't come to light?
The Daily News has entire battalions of reporters covering this guy. There will be three days of headlines if he so much as looks at Southern California MLS listings between now and November 10th. If he opts out, it won't be because he has something in the bag already. It will be because (a) he's sick of the baloney that comes with playing in New York; and (b) because even if his agent repulses a lot of people, he knows what the hell he's doing. That's all.
2 comments:
Come on, Shyster! Don't you know that A-Rod can telepathically communicate — and negotiate contracts — using GreedTron3010(TM)? GreedTron3010 was actually invented by the Swiss during WWII as a safe method for the greedy to communicate with each other — think, "You got a spot in your fancy-pants bank for the piece of priceless art I just stole?" — without being detected by the underfunded rabble. Word on the street is that Arte Moreno's had one for years, and David Glass could have had one by now except he wasn't willing to pay the $15/month service fee.
Hal Bodley is a man of the people. Unless those people have purple lips.
That's a possibility, diesel. Or maybe he can use the same Jedi mind trick on Arte Moreno that he uses on Blue Jay infielders, thereby inducing him to commit to signing him before he opts out.
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