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Who's on short? Inside the A-Rod - Jeter saga By Special to ProgressiveBoink.com November 4, 2025
Well, the 2004 baseball season is in the books, and it sure was a thrilling one. Some of the highlights: - Chicago Cubs fans resolving to "bury the hatchet" regarding the Steven Bartman fiasco by destroying the infamous baseball, as well as crucifying Steven Bartman upside-down on the pitcher's mound - The ratification of a proposal to re-format the league with twenty divisions of 1.5 teams apiece - The passing of Barry Bonds' father, Bobby. Or did that happen last year? I can't remember.
But the story everyone had their eyes on this year was the situation in the Yankees infield regarding the blockbuster deal that brought superstar Alex Rodriguez to New York.
It was a trade that surely sent shivers of fear through the spines of American League pitchers everywhere. Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, two of the most high-profile players in baseball, batting in the same lineup is a truly terrifying prospect. "When I first heard about it, I thought about quitting baseball," said Cubs pitcher Kyle Farnsworth. "But then I remembered that we're in separate leagues, so I was like, cool. But then I remembered that I tend to blow playoff games, and figured that if I had to face the Yankees in the World Series I'd give up a Britney Spears to A-Rod and it would all be over."
"I can't wait," said an excited Alex Rodriguez. "Jete and I go way back. This will be exactly like back when we were rookies and I'd go shoot hoops with him in his driveway. Exactly like that. Only we'll be playing baseball instead of basketball, and we'll be at Yankees Stadium instead of his house, and we're going to get paid like a million billion dollars, and I'll be wearing a Yankees uniform instead of sweatpants and a NO FEAR T-shirt. Oh yeah, and now I'm a huge fucking sellout and the sum of everything that is wrong with major league baseball."
The unprecedented trade was met with plenty of hostility around the league. Critics predicted that this would widen the already distant competition gap between large- and small-market teams.
Said manager Tony Pena, whose Kansas City Royals scrapped together their payroll
by selling Girl Scout cookies and raiding 3B Joe Randa's kid's piggy bank, " Added Pena, "It's gonna be great. We're actually planning re-enactments of the great Royals-Yankees games of the 70s and 80s. You know, back when baseball was worth giving a shit about."
To be sure, this season the baseball spotlight was on A-Rod and Jeter, two of
the greatest shortstops of our time. It certainly was a wild
ride for them, and for us as well. "...And the shortstop position goes to..." So, everyone wondered, who would get to play shortstop? The fan favorite who had played for the Yankees his entire career? Or the hotshot newcomer? Each said and did the polite things. Rodriguez maintained his "friendly, spineless Latino" stereotype, while Jeter kept looking like the stoned, cud-chewing offspring of Clay Aiken and a lemur. And "moving day", as ballplayers often call Spring Training, finally arrived.
The shortstop controversy was ended not long after it began. Jeter got an early start and "moved in" before Rodriguez had the chance to. Said Rodriguez, "I thought I was gonna get the jump for sure. But I got there at like noon and Jete already had almost all his shit moved in. And it sucked because I forgot to bring home boxes from work to pack all my stuff in, so I pretty much just threw everything in my car. It was a huge pain in the ass." He added, "You know those ads that you see on the sides of U-Haul trucks that advertise that you can rent them for $19.95? That's totally not true, you also have to pay them like a buck a mile. And I took all those blanket things out because I thought they were free. And they wanted to charge me a bunch of money for those too, and I was like, 'what the fuck?' I guess now that I make more money than Jesus, people think they can jew me all they want. By the way, I can say that since I'm Hispanic." The Odd Couple It was settled. Jeter would remain at short, and A-Rod would get settled in his new third-base "home", as players often affectionately call their positions. It wasn't long, however, before the bickering started. The first spat occurred when Rodriguez asked Jeter to move his bed closer to second base after he heard that Rafael Palmeiro was coming over. Jeter resented the lecture he received regarding "how he likes to hit it through the middle." "It's like, how long have I been here? Eight years? Oh, and I wonder how many World Series rings he has." Rodriguez snapped back. "Hmm, I wonder if Steinbrenner went and invaded a country for its oil so he could pay him $250 million to play baseball. Yeah, that's what I thought." Before long, though, the two were able to smooth things over. After scooping up a few ground balls, they finished moving in. "Turns out we had just enough room for all our shit," said Jeter. "We set up the kitchen table and living-room area on the infield grass, just off the base path. Hopefully some of that stuff will knock down a few line drives for us."
The new neighbors stopped by soon afterwards to wish them well. Norm Abrams, expert craftsman and host of the TV show "The New Yankee Workshop", paid them a visit. "Yeah, Norm seemed like a pretty cool guy," said Rodriguez. "But I'm pretty sure he came just so he could use that 'The new Yankee Infield? I thought this was the New Yankee Workshop!' joke. After he made that I laughed to make him feel good, then he re-adjusted his glasses and spent the next fifteen minutes just sort of staring at the ground. I don't know, it was just weird. What are a master craftsman and the walking harbinger of baseball doom supposed to say to each other?"
Growing Pains When two superstars used to having plenty of freedom are put into a position in which they have to share their living space, misunderstandings and quarrels are inevitable. But Jeter and Rodriguez had no choice but to learn to live with each other both on the field and on it. From the start, Rodriguez had protested the placement of the kitchen area, insisting that it should have been located near the third-base line so as to get it out of the way. "Bullshit," a disgruntled Jeter told media in the locker room. "He just wants to keep it on his side of the field so he'll have an excuse for not chasing after foul balls." The situation was further complicated when Rodriguez was sidelined for three games due to a bruised rib he suffered while running into the refrigerator as he attempted to field a Manny Ramirez line drive. A week later, Jeter acquired a laceration on his leg after tripping over the open dishwasher door as he trotted to the dugout (Jeter would later blame Rodriguez, convinced that he left it open "because his dumb ass doesn't know how to fit a spaghetti strainer into a dishwasher").
Jeter, meanwhile, took major issue with the third baseman's messy habits.
"His fielding's been a little sloppy lately," he said. "Like Tuesday night, when the Indians were in town. [Indians infielder Omar] Vizquel was taking a heavy lead off second, and I was like, 'Hey Alex, watch him.' He was like, 'yeah, all right', but then just went back to watching TV. So then the hitter squares to bunt, but he fucks up and pops it down the third-base line. We should have had him easy, but of course Gay-Rod was just chilling out on the couch, nowhere near the line. Vizquel was safe easy, and when I was like 'what the hell, dude?', he was all 'shut the fuck up man, I think Sherry Palmer's about to make out with Julia.' Oh yeah, and the other night when he was done eating he totally just left his dirty plate just sitting on the floor near the sink. Who the hell does that?" Crisis at the Yankee Household The strife in the New York infield intensified during a June homestand against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. At the top of an eighth inning in which they had already scored four runs, the Rays had a man on first and one out. Wanting to get everyone some playing time, they brought Rickey Henderson in to pinch-run. Henderson, a future Hall of Famer and 45-year-old journeyman (since starting the season for the Dodgers, he had since been traded to Oakland, Minnesota, Oakland, Cleveland, Oakland, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Oakland, Pittsburgh, Oakland, the New York Mets, San Francisco, Baltimore, Oakland, Houston, Oakland, Texas, St. Louis, Toronto, Oakland, Boston, Oakland, Florida, Seattle, Montreal, Colorado, Oakland, Anaheim, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, the Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati, Oakland, the Kyoto Bird-Dragons of the Pacific League, Oakland, the Green Bay Packers, Atlanta, Manchester United, Oakland, the Republican Party, BACK to Cleveland, and Oakland), immediately took a large lead off first base. "So yeah, we had this big party last night. Everybody came by," said Rodriguez of Kevin Brown's eighth-inning debacle, which resulted in six runs in only 2/3 innings pitched. "The next day we were cleaning up, because the place was a total disaster, and just happened to look down and notice that second base was missing. I called Jete over, and he was like, 'what the fuck, where's our base?' I said, 'Dude, I don't know, did the pizza guy take it maybe?' We were really starting to freak out." They contacted the authorities, who quickly determined the thief to be Henderson upon finding the following key piece of evidence:
"Figures," said Jeter at the time. "Damn crackheads always taking your shit." Rodriguez refused to forgive Jeter for the stolen base, endlessly reminding him that if he were closer to second base, he would never have let it get stolen. It managed to wear thin the final threads of friendship that the two held for each other.
However, the two at least reacted
"It seemed to work pretty well," Rodriguez would later say of the alarm, which they fondly nicknamed "Jorge". "[Rafael] Furcal tried to steal my base the other night. Made him look like Sid Bream on a fucking lead tricycle." Derek discovers the Internet Early in the season, Jeter successfully activated a condition in his contract that stipulated that he would receive a bonus if he could play four games without getting injured. This stipulation, known as the "Griffey Clause", afforded him enough money to purchase a computer, which he did shortly after the All-Star break.
Feuds between the two star infielders grew
increasingly common, and the collapse of their f
"I was lucky enough to find this really great
support chat room that's just for baseball players," he said. "I really
felt a connection - and I'm not just talking about the 56K dial-up speed!" Below is a log from a particularly meaningful conversation of Jeter's. You have entered chatroom: "The Dugout".
Facing the music August had come, and the Yankees were 60-68, which put them twelve games out of first place. Baseball experts had predicted all season that if the two superstar infielders couldn't work well together, the team would go nowhere. And it appeared that Jeter and Rodriguez had failed to prove them wrong. As is the case far too often in today's baseball world, cost-cutting measures had to be made. "We were talking with Steinbrenner - actually, he pretty much just yelled at us," said Rodriguez. "He told us we had to accept that this was a rebuilding year, and that the front office had no choice but to make some changes."
Jeter and Rodriguez reluctantly agreed that it was the only alternative. So on August 18, a fire sale was held. Results, however, were mixed.
"I don't know," said Rodriguez with a sigh. "Maybe we didn't put up enough signs or something. I mean, some people came by, but we didn't make as much cash as we thought we would. "[Braves owner Ted] Turner came by and picked up Kevin Brown and Bernie Williams. And we got some good cash off the TV and fridge. But it got close to the end of the day and we still had a bunch of shit we hadn't sold, so we were practically giving stuff away. Like, we had a couple of really cool floor lamps that went for 10 bucks each." Added Jeter, "Yeah, and we ended up trading Ruben Sierra for a complete set of 1992 Fleer. I was like, 'come on everybody, he's the player of the future!' But nobody cared." After all their belongings had finally been scavenged away by bargain-hunters, the two stood for a moment, crippled by the absurdity of the future that lay ahead for them both. Rodriguez knelt down, scooped up a handful of pedigree Yankee dirt, and watched in reflection as it fell between his fingers. Jeter merely stood there, eyes to the outfield wall. "Alex," he said softly without turning his head. He knew his teammate was listening. "I wonder...those that would watch us from those seats. Do they...know us?" "Of course they do." Jeter shook his head. "How do they? How...can they?" "We are their escape, Jete. These modern times carry about them a sense of uncertainty; a certain numbness. There are no more roads to pave, no shelters to build, no worries to waste. Our display of acrobatics and drama that we carry on betwixt these foul lines is not merely a means of entertainment or a reason to ride the subway to the Bronx every Summer eve. They watch, and they shout, and they cheer us on because we are heroes. Every bit as much a hero as a victorious general who returns home clutching the enemy standard, or a firefighter who rescues a family from a house aflame. The only distinction that can be made, Derek, is that they preserve life, and that we remind what it is to live." "I wonder..." Jeter turned his back to Rodriguez, his eyes welling. His eyes wandered across the seats along the first-base line. "I wonder if they can see our tears." Rodriguez now shook his head. He rose, turned Jeter around to face him, and looked him in the eye.
"They cannot, and they must not. This is our burden to bear. It is not theirs." Jeter understood. "I wish we had a TV." "Me too." And with that, the two had managed to do two things that they had not done in a long while: make amends, and smile. The bitter end By season's end, all hope was lost. The Yankees were mathematically eliminated by the end of August. It was clear that the Jeter-Rodriguez experiment had failed, at least fiscally and statistically.
The two spent their final nights together sleeping under the stars and conjuring wild philosophies for which they could use the stars as metaphor. The Yankees lost seven of their final eight games, but this no longer mattered to Jeter and Rodriguez. For Derek Jeter, the end came a few weeks later.
If Alex wept for him, we did not see it. He handled the matter privately, choosing to bury his companion in right field, where Jeter would often play as a child.
Most would agree that he handled the matter quite tastefully. On Jeter's tombstone, he engraved the words to a song that played during a Pizza Hut pre-movie commercial on the VHS version of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie."
I play right field
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Brought to you by Jon@progressiveboink.com Thanks and apologies to ESPN and Peter Gammons PROGRESSIVEBOINK.COM | THE P-BOI FORUMS | ESPN.COM | THE SIMS| |
We're re-thinking the way we do things around here.
Whenever the Yankees are scheduled to come to town, we'll just forfeit the games
to them and fill the game times with other festivities. Music acts and the
like."
constructively
to the incident,
agreeing to set up a burglar alarm.
riendship
disheartened Jeter. Feeling isolated and lonely, he turned to the Internet
for companionship.
Without
a stove, microwave, or refrigerator, the two infielders had no way to store or
cook food. They slowly began to starve. However, the two managed to
keep each other in good spirits until the end came.
