Yesterday I discussed the Yankees decision to sit A-Rod for the first two games against Florida. This was the report on that story from the NY Post:
“That’s not true,” the GM said before tonight’s Yankees-Marlins game at Land Shark Stadium. “Dr. (Mark) Lindsay said he would benefit from more than a day (off). It was a medical decision. The doctor ordered two days and see you on Sunday. (Joe) Girardi and I am firmly on board.”
According to Cashman, he and Girardi talked after Thursday’s game about giving the slumping Rodriguez a day off. “The next day (Friday) we had a conference call and Alex fessed up and Mark Lindsay said he probably needs more than one day,” Cashman said of Rodriguez’s chiropractor. “I called Joe and it was two days. The club got into Miami at 4 a.m. (Friday) and it (two days off) was a no-brainer.”
Cashman talked to Girardi after Girardi had the ice-cold Rodriguez in the lineup for Friday night’s game.
A Miami Herald story today reported Girardi and Rodriguez “spoke sharply” to each other Friday. Rodriguez scoffed tonight at the suggestion of a riff between him and his manager. “Never been better,” Rodriguez told The Post.
As for the tenor of the conference call, which Cashman said the ownership wasn’t on, Rodriguez said: “It was all very positive.”
Once I read that account of the events, I concluded that this was a non-story. However, as Steve at Was Watching notes, Yankees fans’ ears were assailed by Boomer and Carton’s take on the entire situation this morning:
However, driving in the car this morning, listening to Boomer and Carton on WFAN, I’m beginning to think this thing may have legs. The boys and their callers opined on this one quite a bit.
It seems that some are very into the timing of the benching – this being Miami, where A-Rod is king, etc. And, others are very into the matter that Girardi was not on the call. Some suggest that means that A-Rod and Joe don’t get along. Others think that the Yankees brass is setting Girardi up, somehow, with this move.
It is unbelievable how a story can change once the radio jockeys sink their teeth into it. According to Carton, Joe Girardi not being on the conference call means that he has clearly lost the trust of ownership and is a dead man walking. Never mind the fact that he was clearly in close contact with Brian Cashman throughout this entire process, and forget the fact that none of the reporters on site have suggested that there is any sort of dissension in theorganization. The radio voices need to fill airwaves, and therefore Joe is in trouble and the “core” hates him. When you hear this kind of thing without it being backed by actual reporting, make sure to file it in the circular file, because it is pure fabrication.
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3 Responses to Much A-Rod About Nothing
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TIQ IQ
Thank you for writing this, Mo. I actually listened to that uninformed, misleading, conspiratorial dreck for about an hour and found myself listening to Bloomberg Surveillance (1130AM) for the rest of the morning. I like financial news, but I think I really just wanted to get as far away from 660AM as possible.
Yeah, I listened to it for 20 minutes before it drove me nuts and I had to change the station. They had Heyman telling them they were reading too much into it, yet they continued to spread their drivel.
Evan Roberts even picked up on it, and then Sweeney Murti calmed him down a bit.