When you make more money in half a season than the entire Florida Marlins team will for the year, there's just going to be extra criticism, whether it's fair or not. I'd happily take A-Rod on the Mets. The guy's one of the five best players in baseball, and for people to nitpick about his defense and claim he's costing the team ballgames is insane. In a down year, he's still a tremendous run producer.
Personally, I don't think Yankee fans have ever really warmed to A-Rod. I think he's generally been viewed as a guy who's excellent at his job, and so it's nice to have him around, but that's it. It's not like Mariano Rivera or Derek Jeter, whom the average Yankee fan would lie down in traffic for. Rodriguez, for better or worse is viewed as a mercenary. So it's easy to turn on him when things aren't going well. The whole thing about his clutch hitting ignores the fact that he leads the AL in game-winning RBI. His defense is down this year, way down. So what? He could make 60 errors in a season and his run production would still make him one of the most valuable players in baseball.
But hey, if Yankee fans want to exercise that First Amendment right by booing Rodriguez constantly, more power to them. And if it's all a vicious cycle that leads to inane trade rumors that dominate 3/4 of the average Mike & The Mad Dog show and Rodriguez playing worse and getting psyched out, better still. And if all this should somehow lead to a return of the good old (or for Yankee fans, bad old) Bronx Zoo days? Well, I'm a happy guy.
I say, keep hatin', Yanks fans.
