T-Kep on A-Rod

by 28 Comments

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It’s a beautiful Friday, and I’m sure everyone’s counting down the seconds until the weekend begins. Mike’s chatting, so that will help waste away the final hours at work. If you’re looking for something else, then give this Tyler Kepner article on A-Rod a read. It takes a look at A-Rod‘s personal struggles in his first few years playing for the Yankees, and how he created a new persona this season. Apparently it has a lot to do with Alex ditching his army of advisers and listening to the Yanks, especially media relations director Jason Zillo: “Zillo was blunt with Rodriguez, telling him he was probably the only New York athlete to whom reporters wanted less access, not more.” Seriously, read the whole thing.

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On Matsui and the designated hitter
  • mike HC

    So the PR strategy was essentially, “ARod is so unlikable and unrelatable (I’m not sure if that is a word) that it would be best to just keep him out of the press as much as possible.” Simple and effective. I like it.

    • TheLastClown

      Un-relate-to-able.

  • CountryClub

    It only took him 6 years to figure it out.

    • Rocky Road Redemption (formerly RAB poster)

      Hey, better late than never.

  • thurdonpaul

    good article, thanks for posting it
    it does seem like alex has turned a page, hopefully all that other bs is behind him

    • http://www.secondavenuesagas.com Benjamin Kabak

      It’s Kate Hudson. Who needs tranny stripper hookers when you have Kate Hudson?

      • Rocky Road Redemption (formerly RAB poster)

        Hasn’t he been hitting 300 or close since Hudson kissed him?

      • Makavelli

        If he messes it up he has to deal with Kurt Russell…and Kurt Russell is pretty badass. Especially in “The Thing” when he has that awesome beard. Or in “Escape from New York” when he has a great (but not as great as The Thing’s) beard…

      • Makavelli

        ?

      • Makavelli

        It’s stopping me from posting certain things? Confused…

        • http://www.riveraveblues.com Joseph Pawlikowski

          The word badass gets caut in our spam filter for some reason. Don’t ask me why. Just something I noticed.

      • King of Fruitless Hypotheticals

        It’s Kate Hudson. Who needs tranny stripper hookersMary Carey when you have Kate Hudson?

        fixed?

  • pete

    i gotta be honest – i don’t care.

    • http://www.riveraveblues.com Joseph Pawlikowski

      Care enough to leave a comment on it.

      • jsbrendog

        pwned

        • Memo

          Or maybe he just didn’t care enough about Alex’s personality in the first place to be bothered by it being a “bad” one and now a “good” one?

  • Cam

    I’ve actually been curious about this stuff all year. In the past, all you’d hear from beat writers is how much of a “clown” (to quote Pete Abe) he is, and blah blah blah. But since he’s supposedly become a better person, you don’t hear anything about it. It’s nice to see that the beat writers are recognizing his changes and hopefully it’s appreciated.

  • steve s

    Seriously, the biggest threat to the new found Yankees “pie in the face” clubhouse harmony is all the recent media focus on the wifes and girl friends. The other day it was reported that Mrs. Damon and Mrs Burnett have aligned themselves with Hudson at the expense of Derek’s girl friend Minka Kelly. Also Mrs Posada’s reality show endeavor can’t lead to any good. Nothing will tear a team apart quicker than a a wave of cat-fighting that has the media’s attention. Yankee history hasn’t been immune from this kind of problem. If I recall correctly the feud between Babe and Gehrig was basically fueled by Lou’s wife. Also, who can forget the Fritz Petersen/Kekich stuff. The players should cut this off before it becomes a real problem.

    • Chris

      As long as they stick to their own wives, I think we’ll be ok.

    • Rocky Road Redemption (formerly RAB poster)

      Well, the Babe and Gehrig seemed to do a pretty good job despite the wife issues.

    • Glen L

      Dude … friends’ wives and gfs have disliked each other through out history … i think the team will manage

    • Riddering

      I haven’t read any of that ridiculousness but it seems to me that a woman like Minka Kelly has a life far beyond the wives of her boyfriend’s teammates. Hopefully her career, talent, etc. keep her busy on the dark days when Mrs. Burnett & Mrs. Damon go bra shopping without her.

      And the Captain is there to keep her warm at night.

  • Makavelli

    The article is strangely as interesting as Arod’s personality it portrays…

  • rzg

    To me, the writers of the Bold and the Beautiful (Arod Version) stories are like a bunch of nattering high school girls. They must be really proud of their journalism degrees.

  • dkidd

    i’ve always thought that great athletes have a “selectively stupid” brain: short memory, always confident and positive despite contradictory evidence, increased focus/relaxation in pressure situations. the amazing thing about alex is he seems to have the worst brain possible for an athlete: self-conscious, overly analytical, desperate to please, etc. if you put jeter’s brain in alex’s body, you’d have the greatest player in history

    • King of Fruitless Hypotheticals

      +1

  • http://yankees.lhblogs.com Christina
  • Clare

    To me, this article reveals more about the pettiness and bias of the beat writers than it does about ARod. Look at how much Kepner, and the writers in general, are part of the story.

    ARod stopped giving individual interviews during the 07 season. Nothing has changed about his availability to reporters during the season since then, but now, all of a sudden, he’s different.

    He hasn’t changed, what’s changed in the writers’ attitude towards him. He has been sufficiently humbled by the steroids thing, plus with the revelation of Manny and Ortiz, and how the team has done with and without him, that they are now viewing him differently.

    There’s nothing different about his behavior, at least in the past 2 years. He’s dating a high profile woman – the only difference is this one is closer to what the writers think is an appropriate woman for a baseball player than the last one was.

    The complaints about his behavior in the past are petty and annoying. Tyler says he “whined” in the SI article. How do you determine tone, like a whine, from a written article?

    Tyler’s biggest complaint is that he hired a Hollywood agent. So what? Okay, clearly it violated what reporters think is appropriate, but aside from that, who cares? He played hard on the field, he never badmouthed a teammate, and he worked harder than anyone else on the team. But he was constantly vilified in the press for offending the beat writers’ delicate sensibilities. I think they need to get over themselves.