What Did He Do to Deserve Bronx Jeers?

The MVP chants at Yankee Stadium are directed toward Derek Jeter, the New York Yankees shortstop.

It is a far different and discordant chorus that Alex Rodriguez hears less than a year after winning the American League’s most-valuable-player award, his second in three years.

Amid falloffs at the plate and in the field, amid towering expectations fueled by his career production and $252-million contract, the Yankees’ third baseman has been booed in the Bronx and bombed by media -- analyzed, reanalyzed and mocked by tabloid headlines otherwise reserved for Paul Lo Duca’s divorce, romances and alleged gambling debts.

“Sometimes,” Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman said, “players bring criticism on themselves by their behavior, what they say or do, but 80% of what Alex has had to endure has been pure bull.”

Cashman paused and acknowledged that A-Rod’s performance hasn’t matched 2005, but said the type of scrutiny he has received has been undeserved.

“He was the MVP, the league’s player of the month this May and he is still the league’s best offensive third baseman,” Cashman said.

“To be booed by fans and picked apart by the media like he has been makes you want to say, ‘What is going on here, how much does a guy have to do for the team?’ ”

Said Rodriguez, dismissing the issue of fairness: “Do I feel that I’ve contributed? Yes. Do I feel I can do more? Yes. There’s a lot of important baseball to be played and I’m not going to discuss my year until it’s over. I’m simply working toward a strong finish.”

Coming off a season of 48 home runs, 130 runs batted in and a .321 average, the picking apart Cashman mentioned has been on a personal and professional level.

It has seemingly been beyond the scope of his 25 homers, 86 RBIs and .285 average that most players would pack up and settle for even if there weren’t six weeks still to play.

It has even seemed to be beyond the scope of his 21 errors compared with the total of 25 in the first two years of his Yankees transition from shortstop to third base.

It is as if, some have almost suggested, all of his 454 homers have been hit in meaningless situations, as if that image-conscious facade molded by public-relations expert Andrea Kirby when he was a teenage rookie is something new.

He has been picked apart to the point of being called phony and disingenuous in print and on the air.

He has been re-alphabetized from A-Rod to E-Rod and heard it said and seen it written that suddenly, in his third year, he can’t handle the pressure of New York and should be traded.

He has heard it said and seen it written that all of the Rodriguez commotion and struggle is wearing down the Yankees and he lacks the intangible “it” of a clutch performer.

Absent the protective cover of injured Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield for almost the entire season, further underscoring the contention, perhaps, that he has to be the man, Rodriguez hasn’t exactly put up meaningless numbers in the clutch.

He is batting .500 with the bases loaded (seven for 14) and .283 with runners in scoring position, and his team leads the Boston Red Sox by 1 1/2 games going into today’s opener of Armageddon, a five-game series at Fenway Park.

It’s simply that measured against himself, measured against the career average of 42 homers and 121 RBIs for his previous 10 full seasons, measured against the contract and his generally smooth move to third base in the first two years, there definitely has been a struggle to 2006.

So many ground balls now take on the appearance of a grenade to be hurriedly and erratically thrown away.

So many chances to confront his critics in the batter’s box or clubhouse have now been lost, in the one case through uncharacteristic popups or strikeouts, or in the other by the often too characteristic bland and seemingly preconceived quotes, as if those occasional instances of self-flagellation -- “I stink, I stunk” -- were orchestrated by the therapist he has admitted seeing or by his longtime mental skills coach, Jim Fannin.

On his website -- www.arod.com -- Rodriguez illustrates some of his community and charity involvement, underscores his affection for his wife, Cynthia, and their 20-month-old daughter, Natasha, but elects not to address his performance or the reaction of fans and media to it.

The facade seldom cracks.

Sitting in a corner of the Yankees’ clubhouse, asked about his performance and the hostility, the fairness or unfairness of it, Rodriguez said it’s up to the media to decide what’s fair and that he doesn’t put much weight on it, “because it would be foolish to think the writers really know me.”

“Part of it is simply reflective of the passion of New York baseball, and it’s a compliment in a way because people expect so much from me,” he said. “But I try not to get caught up in the everyday emotion of things, and I certainly can’t control the perception. All I can do is prepare and play, and the funny thing, the bottom line, is that I still feel appreciated, I really do. As long as I’m right with myself, my family and the man upstairs, none of that other stuff sticks.

“I mean, the point is not what’s fair. The point is we’re here to win a pennant and we’re in a good position to go on and do that.”

The message Rodriguez has received from Cashman, Manager Joe Torre and batting coach Don Mattingly has been to grind on, and he has.

Before a recent night game against the Baltimore Orioles, Rodriguez hit in an indoor cage before and after formal batting practice and also fielded several dozen ground balls to get his positioning right and correct a tendency to drop his arm below three-quarters on his throws.

“Alex cares, and may care too much,” said Torre, who recently criticized ESPN for “unfairly targeting” his third baseman. “I don’t say he wants to be perfect, that would be unfair, but he expects an awful lot of himself and there’s a human element that can get in the way of that. He may get anxious at times, get thinking of too many things, and that creates a degree of tension that’s tough to play with.

“I still believe that in the next couple of weeks he’s going to pick up the club and carry it. Once he gets to that familiar comfort zone it’ll affect his performance on both sides of the ball.”

Rodriguez hit .330 in May and is hitting .317 in August. He has had difficulty maintaining the groove, however, and it’s with the bat that he makes his high-scale living.

After all, he recently became only the eighth player to collect 2,000 hits before turning 31 and he recently became the youngest to hit 450 homers. If the historic achievements have been overlooked amid the fan and media blitz, longtime Yankees first baseman Mattingly thinks the environment has complicated A-Rod’s 2006 search for a consistent groove.

“Anyone who says it doesn’t hurt to be booed or criticized is lying,” Mattingly said. “It would affect anybody, and it’s a much larger part of the package with Alex because the expectations are so high. That’s not necessarily fair, but he has to deal with it, grind through it, and the fortunate thing is that he can turn his year around by putting it together down the stretch.

“This is an everyday town. It’s ‘what did you do for us today?’ and that pushes you to be better. There’s always the advantage here of having the chance to erase a disappointing summer in September and October.”

For the Yankees, that’s always the pinstriped promised land, tough to reach at times because no Broadway drama gets more attention or examination than the one played out in the Bronx.

“It’s a pretty big and bright microscope here,” said first baseman and designated hitter Jason Giambi. “We’ve all been under it, we’ve all had moments where we’ve wanted to say ‘enough, turn it off,’ but there’s no sense battling the fairness or unfairness of it because that’s just a losing proposition. We’ve all survived, and so will Alex. He has too much talent not to. He’ll find a way.”

If the microscope finds Rodriguez too Madison Avenue for some in the media to buy as real, Madison Avenue has no problems with it. He retains an array of endorsement contracts with more on the way. Never linked to steroids or damaged by legal problems, he is viewed as long-term gold, said Steve Fortunato, who handles that part of A-Rod’s business under agent Scott Boras’ marketing wing.

“The corporations have no problems with his stats and style,” Fortunato said, hinting there are millions to be made on top of the record millions in his baseball contract, which has four of the 10 years left and of which Rodriguez makes no apology to anyone, including booing fans and harping media.

“I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished and I’m proud of the contract,” he said in the Yankees’ clubhouse. “At the time I signed” with Texas, “people knocked me for taking the money and going with a weaker team. When I came to the Yankees, I was accused of orchestrating the trade so that I could play for a winning team.

“It is what it is, and people will see it and write it the way they want, but I’d be the last person to whine and complain. I’ve been dealt an awfully good hand, and I’m very grateful.”

Certainly, no tabloid tidbit with that.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The most powerful men in baseball history

Players with 400 or more home runs (* indicates active player):

*--* RK PLAYER Games AVG. HR 1. Hank Aaron 3,298 305 755 2. Barry Bonds* 2,827 298 724 3. Babe Ruth 2,503 342 714 4. Willie Mays 2,992 302 660 5. Sammy Sosa 2,240 274 588 6. Frank Robinson 2,808 294 586 7. Mark McGwire 1,874 263 583 8. Harmon Killebrew 2,435 256 573 9. Rafael Palmeiro 2,831 288 569 10. Reggie Jackson 2,820 262 563 11. Ken Griffey Jr.* 2,216 291 561 12. Mike Schmidt 2,404 267 548 13. Mickey Mantle 2,401 298 536 14. Jimmie Foxx 2,317 325 534 15. Ted Williams 2,292 344 521 15. Willie McCovey 2,588 270 521 17. Ernie Banks 2,528 274 512 17. Eddie Mathews 2,391 271 512 19. Mel Ott 2,730 304 511 20. Eddie Murray 3,026 287 504 21. Fred McGriff 2,460 284 493 21. Lou Gehrig 2,164 340 493 23. Willie Stargell 2,360 282 475 23. Stan Musial 3,026 331 475 25. Frank Thomas* 2,056 305 473 26. Manny Ramirez* 1,802 314 467 27. Jim Thome* 1,847 282 466 28. Dave Winfield 2,973 283 465 29. Jose Canseco 1,887 266 462 30. Alex Rodriguez* 1,707 306 454 31. Gary Sheffield* 2,220 298 453 32. Carl Yastrzemski 3,308 285 452 33. Jeff Bagwell 2,150 297 449 34. Dave Kingman 1,941 236 442 35. Andre Dawson 2,627 279 438 36. Juan Gonzalez 1,689 295 434 37. Cal Ripken 3,001 276 431 38. Billy Williams 2,488 290 426 39. Mike Piazza* 1,797 310 415 40. Darrell Evans 2,687 248 414 41. Duke Snider 2,143 295 407

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