The New York Post
May 31, 2007 -- This isn't about The Other Stuff. You want The Other Stuff, it isn't hard to find, flip the pages of this newspaper to the left and you can find all of The Other Stuff that you could possibly ask for.
This is about baseball, again, for Alex Rodriguez, for the Yankees, and about how on the field A-Rod is a human lightning rod, always managing to find a way to become the middle of a story, even when it seems he has to go out of his way and make half a dozen U-turns to find that story.
Sometimes, it's basic things, like the two plays that helped turn around Tuesday's 3-2 loss to the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre, the bad throw to first that helped set up Aaron Hill's steal of home, the decision to play a sacrifice bunt an inning later that looked to all the world to be half a revolution away from going foul. That set up the game-winning sacrifice fly. Bad plays? Maybe. They happen. Even to the very best.
And then you have a moment like A-Rod had last night, a moment that it seems only he is capable of delivering, like clockwork.
It was the top of the ninth inning. The Yankees, frantic for a victory, had nudged across an insurance run, extending their lead from 6-5 to 7-5. Hideki Matsui was on second base. Rodriguez, who'd driven in that bonus run, was on first. There were two outs.
Brian Wolfe had just been summoned by Blue Jays manager John Gibbons to make his major-league debut. His assignment was Jorge Posada, who ran the count full, then skied a pop-up high over the infield. Baseball players have been calling this kind of pop-up "hitting it into the silo" for a century and a half. Blue Jays third baseman Howie Clark got a bead on it. Everyone waited for the inning to end.
The "Other" Stuff From yesterday's New York Post
Only it didn't end. Because Clark never did catch the ball. Instead, he and the rest of the 29,187 people inside the stadium gasped as it bounced hard against one of the last artificial turfs remaining in major league baseball, Superballing once, finally settling to rest.
At first, it seemed like just another stroke of good fortune for Posada, who is now hitting .357 and has been getting the kind of bounces and breaks .357 hitters always get.
Only then you could see Joe McDonald, the shortstop, jawing at A-Rod. You could see the same thing from Clark. And then A-Rod jawed back. And here came Gibbons. And now the crowd started to get restless, and angry. Matsui had scored the second run of the inning. A-Rod stood on third, smiling when he wasn't arguing with the left side of the Jays infield.
What happened?
Soon, it was apparent what happened. On replay, you see Rodriguez rounding second, heading for third, and as soon as he passes Clark you can see him open his mouth. There is no disputing that he said something. Rodriguez said it was "Hah!" The Jays insisted he said "Mine," the common infield phrase meaning "I got it."
Both teams had their own unique interpretations, of course.
"Maybe I'm naive, but I thought it was a bush-league play," is how Gibbons described it.
"One thing you know about the Yankees, one of the reasons they're so respected, they do things right. They always have. They got a lot of pride and a lot of class. They play the game hard and that's not Yankee pride right there. That's not the way they play."
A-Rod? "I just said, 'Hah!' That's it," he said. "Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't."
He added that he did what he did "to help us win a game. We're desperate."
Added Joe Torre: "It's not like he said, 'I got it.'"
How do these things find him? How do they happen to him?
There have been thousands of baseball games played across the decades. How many times have you heard a player accused of this? But, then, how many times had you ever seen a guy thrown out for slapping a pitcher, as Rodriguez was in Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS?
Is it an illegal play? No. Is it a breach of etiquette?
Put it this way: If Pete Rose did this, men would write poems about grittiness, paeans to aggressiveness. But with A-Rod, it rubs opponents the wrong way.
Put it another way: the next time the Yankees face the Blue Jays, the next time A-Rod steps in against A.J. Burnett or Roy Halladay, he may want to wear two batting helmets.
Just in case the Blue Jays are feeling a bit desperate by then, too.
michael.vaccaro@nypost.com
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