Rodriguez is coy about future with Yankees

NEW YORK -- Midnight had come and gone, and so had the New York Yankees.

At half past midnight, Alex Rodriguez walked slowly to his locker, took a sip of water, then turned around to face his future.

The first question, the one fans have waited all year to ask: Was this his final game with the Yankees?

“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t really thought about it. It’s been all baseball for eight months.”

He just has to say yes. He is the one player who could change the baseball landscape in Los Angeles, or in Anaheim. Go west, young man. We offer you love and peace, ballparks packed with happy fans, contending teams desperate for a power-hitting third baseman.

Or stay here.

“The reason I came to New York, first and foremost, was to help this team win a championship,” he said. “I must say I have failed at that. Whatever blame you put on me is fair.”

He was decidedly and determinedly noncommittal about his escape clause. He would say he loves New York, but he would not say he would play here next year. It’s his choice. He has one month to decide.

So Rodriguez didn’t offer us much. But Scott Boras, the agent who negotiated the opt-out clause into that record contract, floated the possibility that Rodriguez might not use it.

“If he were to come to me and say, ‘I want to stay with the Yankees for three more years and continue on this contract,’ then he would be a free agent at 35,” Boras said.

“Could he go out and get a 10-year contract at 35, with the performance levels he’s had? I would not be surprised.”

Wait a second. We’ve spent all summer waiting for Rodriguez to opt out, anticipating the bidding war, fitting him in our minds for an Angels or Dodgers uniform. And now he might say, well, never mind?

Maybe. Boras wouldn’t have advised J.D. Drew to opt out of his contract with the Dodgers without a pretty good idea Drew could do better in free agency. Maybe Boras has a pretty good idea that Rodriguez might not do better.

Here’s why: If Rodriguez does not opt out, he gets $27 million next year, $32 million in each of the following two years. That’s $91 million in all, but not all paid by the Yankees.

The Texas Rangers are on the hook for $21 million. If Rodriguez opts out of this contract, the Rangers are off the hook. That’s why Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ general manager, insists his team is out if Rodriguez opts out.

If he stays, the Yankees can negotiate an extension. The Rangers wouldn’t help with that, but the Yankees can more than make up for that with cash from the new ballpark rising across the street.

In that wacky winter seven years ago, the one in which Rodriguez got the contract paying him $25 million per year, Manny Ramirez got one for $20 million. No one has gotten $20 million per year since then.

Boras loves to tell you -- and so does Commissioner Bud Selig -- all about baseball’s soaring revenues. More money from ticket sales, from television contracts, from T-shirts. But that has been happening for a few years now, and still no one has crossed that $20-million line.

So would the Angels or Dodgers really cross the $30-million line? You wonder.

Rodriguez guarantees nothing. It has been 21 years since the team with the highest-paid player won the World Series.

Boras would love to convince Arte Moreno that Rodriguez is the guy the Angels need to take over L.A. He would love to convince Frank McCourt that Rodriguez is the guy the Dodgers need to sell 4 million tickets. He would love to scare either owner on the prospect of Rodriguez joining the other team.

“I think Alex would be comfortable in a place he knew he could win, his family would be comfortable and he could be successful as a player,” Boras said. “That would certainly include Southern California.”

But Moreno has to sign Vladimir Guerrero to a contract extension soon, and he might prefer not to spend $50 million a year for two players. McCourt just spent $47 million on Jason Schmidt and got burned, and he might not want to spend four times, five times, maybe six times as much on Rodriguez.

This might be a decision Moreno and McCourt never have to face. Reggie Jackson said he has talked to Rodriguez about his decision and believes Rodriguez will be back in pinstripes.

“I hope so,” Jackson said. “I think so.”

Rodriguez takes the blame here, and plenty of it. He was asked why he would stay here, where everything is his fault, when he has the option to go.

He looked up, with a weary smile, betraying nothing.

“Thank you for that option,” he said.

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bill.shaikin@latimes.com