Rant #1,725: It's Over (Almost)

One of the all-time lightning rods of controversy in Major League Baseball is just about done.

He is toast.

And he is named Alex Rodriguez, better known in some circles as ARod.

The New York Yankees player, who is without a position on this team that has purposely tanked for the rest of this season--and perhaps one or two more, with recent moves that they made--is just about done in the Bronx, he of his 696 home runs.

And he has said that he is OK with it, because he can see that while he doesn't fit in Yankee Stadium anymore, he sees good days ahead for himself.

He doesn't consider himself done as a player, and if he is, he has his two daughters to help raise, and that will keep him busy.

Sure, how this is happening has to be hurting his pride, but he is saying all the right things, and has been doing that since he came back from that ever so nasty PED suspension last year.

Last year, he had a renaissance season, hitting over 30 homers, driving in runs, and pretty much having one of the most satisfying personal seasons of his entire career, by his own estimation.

He came back from the dead once, and the Yankees were counting on him to do it again this year.

Well, due to assorted injuries, inactivity and age, this over 40 ARod is not the ARod who was literally the real "Natural" when he came up all those years ago with the Seattle Mariners.

There have been many bumps along the way--including his admitted use of PEDs--which have derailed his once certain Hall of Fame career.

But like some other fallen stars--Daryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden come to mind--you pull for them because they seem to be nice guys who have just fallen into holes of their own creation.

Great ballplayers, stupid people--yes, these three match that profile--but they are so likable, you just have to be in their corner, Gooden and Strawberry's a bit more than ARod's but yes, ARod is in the same category as the two former Mets/Yankees players are.

Now at the twilight of his career, ARod hasn't shown that he can hit anymore. He is slow on his mechanics, slow on the fastball, and when 21 year old pitchers are throwing the ball past this 41 year old player, you know it is over.

I remember another great player who called it quits because he just couldn't do it anymore.

Mickey Mantle was "The Natural" of his time, a player who could do anything on the baseball field. But by 1968, he simply could not do it anymore.

Spring training in 1969 came, and with the designated hitter looming in the near future, Mantle figured he would give it one more shot, and reported to spring training.

He went through the routines, and decided right then and there that he was done, and left, never to try again.

ARod is sort of in that position now. Mantle still had a little in the tank, ARod evidently, based on his play this year, has little or nothing there, so it is time to move on.

Personally, I have no doubt that he will sign with someone else next year, and he will get his 700 homers, but it won't be at Yankee Stadium, unless he is a visiting player.

So for right now, he inhabits the No. 13 jersey, but that will probably be temporary.

By all accounts, he will be released and bought out of his contract, which has one more year to go on it, pretty soon.

Give the guy credit. He made a jerk of himself during the PED phase of his career, but this guy did come back, and he did prove all the doubters wrong, at least for one season.

But it has all caught up to him this season, and while I don't think we have heard the last of ARod, I do think we have heard the last of him as a Yankee.

Everything good has to end sometime, and when ARod was right, he was better than good.

In 2016, though, he is more ABad than ARod, so it is time to leave the party.

And what a party it has been.