Alex Rodriguez and the big hurry

Why did Alex Rodriguez rush to announce that he was opting out of his contract with the Yankees? Why did he and his agent Scott Boras violate the commissioner's directive by releasing major news before the World Series was over?

Was it just the usual self-centered attention-whoring, or was it something more interesting?

Yankees GM Brian Cashman told reporters that the club wanted to meet with A-Rod and offer him a huge new deal, but Rodriguez opted out by text message, without even a face-to-face meeting.

What was the rush?

Maybe it has something to do with Jose Canseco's comments last year that he had information about Alex Rodriguez which he was planning to include in his next book.

Maybe it has something to do with Major League Baseball's molasses-slow steroids investigation, carefully contained by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, who is allegedly about to release a blockbuster name-naming report.

If Alex Rodriguez wants to leave New York and sign a long-term contract with another team, it certainly would be a good idea to get the deal done quickly, just in case there's anything coming out that might cause him problems.

Everybody's covered if they can just get the contract signed quickly enough.

Then they can all say "Innocent until proven guilty" until they're forced to say, "Gosh, if we'd only known, we never would have signed him, but now we can't get out of the contract. Oh, well. We'll just have to live with the fact that he will fill the seats every night for the next ten years while he chases Barry Bonds' career home-run record."

Well, maybe they won't say that last part. Not with a straight face.


Copyright 2007

Editor's note: You might be interested in the earlier posts, "Jose Canseco's interesting threat" and "Barry Bonds' big asterisk."

.