The rise and fall of A-Rod

How Alex Rodriguez slipped from being perhaps the greatest player on the planet to one of the most reviled and ridiculed athletes in sports history

Leon Halip / Getty Images

Alex Rodriguez?is a three-time AL MVP, but has seen his career spiral into a litany of performance-enhancing drug allegations and off-the-field distractions.

THE BIG READ BY JOE POSNANSKI

updated 9:02 a.m. ET Feb. 22, 2013

Allard Baird would say he was literally shaking. Baird is not a demonstrative person ? he?s the sort of man who would call the best meal of his life ?good? or, perhaps, if he was feeling especially forthcoming, ?really good? ? and this is why the word ?literally? matters. He would remember ?literally? shaking as he sent in his report on a high school baseball player named Alex Rodriguez.

Baird was a young scout ? this was before he became general manager of the Kansas City Royals, long before he became vice president of player personnel for the Boston Red Sox. It was 20 years ago. He had been coaching baseball ? ?on the field,? as baseball people like to say. He grew used to locating players? weaknesses and working on them.

With Alex Rodriguez ? Baird could see no weaknesses. The kid was perfect.

The 2012 National Sportswriter of the Year, Joe Posnanski comes to NBC Sports after writing for Sports Illustrated, The Kansas City Star and, most recently, Sports on Earth. He?ll write three times a week, including a weekly Friday column called ?The Big Read.?

This is what rattled Allard Baird. He kept going back, again and again, to Westminster Christian High School in Miami to see the kid play. He must have watched Rodriguez 25 or 30 times ? at games, at practices, at special batting sessions for the scouts. Scouts generally measure five tools, of course: Speed, defense, arm strength, hitting and hitting for power. Rodriguez had them all. He could hit, of course ? he hit .500 his senior year. At 17, the ball already leaped off his bat and stayed in the air for a second or two longer than you expected ? and it was obvious he would only get stronger. He was so fast that high school catchers verifiably could not throw him out stealing (he was 35 for 35 in stolen bases his senior year). He played a beautiful shortstop, and his arm was the best Baird had ever seen at shortstop. Oh, that arm might have been the best part ? Rodriguez would throw and the ball would just skim the air across the infield, like a stone skipping over water.

Nobody could miss the tools. Once Baird took a brand new scout, his friend Muzzy Jackson, to see Rodriguez play. They watched him for five minutes. ?This scouting business is easy,? Jackson said. ?This kid?s got everything.?

Well, OK, Rodriguez was a true five-tool player. They are rare, but they happen.

This wasn?t what unnerved Allard Baird. Rodriguez didn?t just have tools ? he had skill too. He knew what he was doing. And he loved to play. His teammates liked him. He wanted to learn. On the rare occasions when he failed ? like when he would bounce the ball back to the pitcher ? he would run his heart out to first base.

Alex Rodriguez's career statistics

?When he took infield practice, he would show you his arm strength,? Baird says. ?When he hit in intrasquad games, he would run at 100 percent. He never took a play off, never, and you have to remember he was levels above everyone else. He enjoyed being on the field. He loved baseball. When you talked to him, he was pretty humble ? he knew that he was talented but he didn?t take anything for granted.

?Your job as an evaluator is to be positive. But it?s also to understand that the player will ultimately show you his deficiencies. With Alex, I just kept going back, and let?s just say it was pretty hard to dissect him.?

Baird says something else, something that might be worth remembering later on: He says that Rodriguez would do ANYTHING for scouts. Anything. They wanted him to stay after games to hit with a wooden bat? He would do that. They wanted him to talk about himself? He would talk about himself. They wanted to get him away from the field. He would do that. ?He was out there every day doing whatever scouts wanted him to do,? Baird says. ?He did it all with the joy of playing the game.?

David Bergman / ? David Bergman/Corbis High school senior Alex Rodriguez poses during practice at Westminster High School in 1993 in Miami.

Finally, Baird wrote his report. He graded Alex Rodriguez as a 70 player on the 20 to 80 scale. It was the highest grade Allard Baird would ever give a player, the highest grade he reasonably could give a player. ?I ranked him a Hall of Famer,? Baird says. And you should understand that Baird wasn?t saying that A-Rod might develop into a Hall of Famer after some years of development and coaching. No, Baird was saying that at that very moment in time, at age 17, Alex Rodriguez could step into to the Major Leagues and have a Hall of Fame career.

Yes, Baird would say he literally shook as he sent the report in.

That is how good Alex Rodriguez was when he was young.

* * *

So, how did he get here? How did the most extraordinary young player of his generation (at the time, Red Sox GM Dan Duquette predicted, not facetiously, that Rodriguez might have a year where he hit .400 with 60 homers), a handsome young man who three times (three times!) was named one of People Magazine?s Most Beautiful People, a phenom who was the best shortstop in the game more or less the day he showed up ? how did that guy become this A-Rod?

The hated A-Rod.

The disgraced A-Rod.

The PED-abuser A-Rod.

The choking A-Rod.

The A-Rod that no team in baseball really wants.

How? Duquette is now Baltimore?s executive vice president of baseball operations, and it has been almost 20 years, but he still has this powerful memory of the first time he saw Rodriguez. He was GM of the Montreal Expos, and he remembers wandering around the minor league spring training fields in Lantana, Florida when he suddenly just stopped cold.

?Who,? he asked the guys with him, ?Is that playing shortstop over there??

He said this just seeing the young Alex Rodriguez field a ground ball. One ground ball. From two fields away.

?He had such great size and such fluid actions at shortstop,? Duquette says. ?You just don?t see that combination ? he was just an extraordinary talent. He was so supremely gifted that it really catches the eye. You didn?t even need a second glance to see it.?

At 18, the year after he was the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, Rodriguez moved from Class A Appleton to Class AA Jacksonville to Class AAA Calgary to Seattle. He hit .312 with 21 homers and 20 stolen bases in the minors that first year. Seattle manager Lou Piniella talked the Mariners into calling up Rodriguez ? not because of his soon-to-be-famous bat but because at 18 he was already better defensively than anyone on the Major League team. ?He was awesome,? Rodriguez?s minor league teammate Raul Ibanez says plainly.

Stephen Dunn / Getty Images Shortstop Alex Rodriguez of the Seattle Mariners fields a groundball during a 11-2 win over the California Angels on Sept. 25, 1996.

Rodriguez became a star almost instantly. In the 50 years leading up to 1996, only one 20-year-old shortstop ? the Hall of Famer Robin Yount ? had come to the plate 600 times in a season. It?s a rare thing to find a 20-year-old shortstop simply good enough to play every day in the big leagues. Yount, it should be said, was mostly overmatched ? he hit .252 with two homers. Rodriguez at 20 hit .358 with 54 doubles and 36 homers and he finished second in the MVP balloting. There has never been a shortstop so good, so young.

He flashed all those tools and skills and traits that had amazed Allard Baird: Everyone talked about his joy for the game, his deference to teammates, his innocence. ?On July 27,? Gerry Callahan wrote that year in a Sports Illustrated story called ?The Fairest of Them All,? ?Alex Rodriguez will turn 21, making him old enough to have a beer with his Seattle Mariners teammates. He says he?s not interested. ?Can?t stand the taste,? he says. Rodriguez has always felt more at home among milk drinkers.?

The story follows hits all the touchstones. Rodriguez was innocent. Rodriguez was humble. He loved playing in Seattle (?I can?t imagine playing anywhere else?). He was deferential to stars like Ken Griffey (?To me, Junior is just so special and so unique?). More than anything, he had his priorities straight (?My Mom always said, ?I don?t care if you turn out to be a terrible ballplayer, I just want you to be a good person. ? Like Cal (Ripken) or Dale Murphy. I want people to look at me and say, ?He?s a good person.??).

Reading the story now, you can?t help but wonder: Were there signs of the A-Rod who would emerge? The A-Rod who craved approval? The A-Rod who needed to be viewed as perfect? That?s amateur psychology drivel, of course, but it is worth mentioning that the one somewhat sour note of the story came in a quote from an unnamed teammate:

?Well, he?s definitely a good kid,? the teammate acknowledged. ?But you know all that stuff like, ?Oh gee, I?m just happy to be in the big leagues?? Well, that?s an act. Don?t let him fool you. He knows how good he is. And he knows how good he?s going to be.?

advertisement

More newsLeon Halip / Getty Images

The rise and fall of A-Rod

The Big Read by Joe Posnanski: How did the most extraordinary young player of his generation, a handsome young man who three times (three times!) was named one of People Magazine?s Most Beautiful People, a phenom who was the best shortstop in the game more or less the day he showed up ? how did that guy become this A-Rod?

Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/50877666/ns/sports-baseball/

casey anthony baltimore ravens ravens Ravens vs Patriots 49ers Vs Falcons Mama Movie flyers

Colorado Springs bishop calls National Catholic Reporter ?an embarrassment to the Catholic Church?

COLORADO SPRINGS, Feb. 22, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Colorado bishop is supporting the local bishop in his call for the National Catholic Reporter to drop the name "Catholic."

Bishop Michael Sheridan of Colorado Springs told LifeSiteNews.com in an interview this week that the national paper is ?an embarrassment to the Catholic Church.?

In January, Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, where NCR?s offices are located, published a column reminding the paper and the faithful that NCR has been forbidden from using the name ?Catholic? since 1968.

The Code of Canon Law stipulates in canon 216 that no organization can use the name Catholic without permission of the ecclesiastical authority.

NCR is renowned for opposing Catholic teaching on women?s ordination, contraception, homosexuality, and other issues, yet still enjoys privileged access to many Church leaders and regularly features ads paid for by Catholic dioceses and parishes.

?I believe exactly what [Bishop Finn is] saying,? said Sheridan. ?That is a big deal for me?I don?t understand why some of these publications use the word Catholic when in some of their editorial stances they stand absolutely opposed to Church dogma.??

Even if the paper continues to defy the bishop, he continued, churches should ?absolutely not? make it available to parishioners on their magazine racks.

In his January 25th?column, Bishop Finn noted that NCR?s ?positions against authentic Church teaching and leadership have not changed trajectory? since the original ruling in 1968 by Bishop Charles Helmsing.

Click "like" if you want to defend true marriage.

?In light of the number of recent expressions of concern, I have a responsibility as the local bishop to instruct the Faithful about the problematic nature of this media source which bears the name ?Catholic,?? he added.

Nevertheless, the paper has remained defiant. ?NCR?is proud to call itself a Catholic publication,? wrote Thomas Fox, the paper?s publisher, on January 27th. ?We report and comment on church matters including official teachings. We also report and comment on those who call into question some of these official teachings.?

Fox also pointed out that NCR is a member of the Catholic Press Association, which is approved by the Catholic Church.

Source: http://feeds.newadvent.org/~r/bestoftheweb/~3/LkP2zCozUqk/colorado-bishop-national-catholic-reporter-is-an-embarrassment-to-the-catho

Hansel and Gretel LGBT Giovanna Plowman martin luther king jr quotes Inauguration 2013 Tony Gonzalez Richard Blanco

California wins at No. 23 Oregon 48-46

EUGENE, Ore. -- Justin Cobbs' jumper with 0.7 seconds to play gave California a 48-46 victory over No. 23 Oregon on Thursday night.

Cobbs' shot, which came after the Golden Bears (17-9, 9-5 Pac-12) ran nearly all of the final 26 seconds off the clock, hit nothing but net.

Cobbs finished with 14 points and Allen Crabbe had 12 for Cal, which has won four straight.

Arsalan Kazemi had 11 points and a season-high 18 rebounds for the Ducks (21-6, 10-4), who lost their 11th straight game to the Bears. Carlos Emory scored 13 points.

Oregon, which led 26-21 at halftime, was up 46-43 with 2:06 to play when Robert Thurman recorded a three-point play for Cal on a dunk and free throw to tie it.

The Ducks had a turnover and two missed shots in their final possessions.

Source: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/02/21/3247169/california-wins-at-no-23-oregon.html

illinois primary trayvon martin 911 call kiribati vernal equinox mr rogers jamie lee curtis spring equinox

Healthy Self Improvement Tips For Creative Personal Growth ...

TIP! Organize your life. The process of cleaning up and organizing provides a massive boost to your self-esteem.

You can often learn a great deal about yourself from other people. There are many great professionals, friends, and teachers that can help you understand your thoughts and discuss your feelings.

TIP! Maintaining benevolent wishes for others can lead to an increase in the good things you bring into your own life. Wish others well in life so you feel positive empowerment.

It can be difficult to reach goals that are too hard or vague, and this may discourage you on your path to personal development. Make your goals very specific. You will get better results when you define a specific goal.

TIP! As part of your personal development, you should constantly try to have love be the driving force behind your faith. There is no faith without love.

Understand what you want from your life. Following through is the next step. Pondering an ideal life without taking the action to make it a reality will inevitably lead to nothing. If you take action and start working toward achieving your dreams, you can change your life for the better.

TIP! To develop as a human being, it is important to know what your ambitions and goals are. Having long term goals will make quite the difference in how you perceive the world around you.

Leaders are humble, though powerful and strict too. You need to understand and empathize with followers in order to be a good leader, and when you do, you will temper rebukes with compassion. A good leader is virtuous and full of integrity, something you need in order to be successful.

TIP! When trying to handle depression, focus on your diet and increase your complex carbohydrates. A diet that is deficient in complex carbohydrates can lead to low serotonin levels.

Treat yourself right by respecting your body. Never allow yourself to become dehydrated or overly hungry. A healthy body provides you with the basis for pursuing a course of personal development. If you ignore your body, it may ignore you in the future.

TIP! Ask yourself whether excessive drinking is a major contributing factor in your life. Are you a smoker or do you have any other harmful habits? Your body is certainly a temple, yet these types of behaviors disregard its sanctity.

Exercise should be a part of everyone?s routine. There are many physical and mental benefits to a regular exercise program. Exercising stimulates your body to produce all kinds of chemicals that ultimately result in a happier, calmer you.

TIP! Don?t just respect people who have power or something to offer you; treat everyone with respect. The way that you treat others says a lot about the person that you are.

It is vital to watch your health when developing yourself to your full potential. Creating a healthy lifestyle requires you to stay motivated at all times. If you make your health the priority, you will likely feel your best, which makes contributing to the different aspects of life easier.

TIP! Avoiding a decision means missing out on an opportunity when engaging in personal development. Never back down from an opportunity.

If failings don?t respond to efforts at improvement, it may be wise to consult a therapist. While self-help books can be effective, many cannot provide the benefits that come from personal, targeted interaction with a therapist. Sometimes, simply talking through your problems can help you conquer them. Books can?t interact with people the way a trained psychiatrist is able to.

TIP! Sexual capital is a new thing that is being learned about, and it is very crucial to start developing yourself. This has nothing to do with using sex appeal to get the things you covet.

Look for different sources of encouragement, like books. Some people see it spiritually, whereas others just find it inspirationally. A book functions as a concrete object you can use to find support and useful advice when you need it.

TIP! Humility is key. Everyone is fairly insignificant compared to the size of the universe.

Be prepared to write down ideas as they come to you, no matter where that may happen. Carry pens and paper with you at all times. Write down your idea in detail, then implement it at a later time when you can expand on the issue.

TIP! You should always want a higher level of self restraint when working hard for personal development. You should have the proper amount of self-control over your desires.

If the quality level of today is 2000, try to make tomorrow?s quality level 2001 or higher. Steady, unending improvement should be your goal. Push yourself to do something better today than you did the day before.

TIP! Whatever it is that you need to have in your life, make sure you have one thing. It is important that you be an active participant in living your life.

It is important to know yourself and accept who you are as a person. Remember to always treat yourself with the respect and dignity you deserve. Honesty regarding how you feel is always a must so that you can appreciate how great you really are.

To Your Success,

Falecia Tucker
?The Retired Young?un?
678-491-8448

P.S. To Discover How 2 Ex-Homeless Guys Are Now Earning Over Six Figures A Month Using 3 Weird Marketing Tricks with a simple BLOGGING WEBSITE just like this one, go here NOW! => Show Me The Money Making Blogging Website!

Source: http://www.empowernetwork.com/faleciatucker/blog/healthy-self-improvement-tips-for-creative-personal-growth-2/

chuck colson death meteor showers 2012 ufc 145 jones vs evans marian hossa philip humber red sox

Young Americans erasing debt fast, study says

Nam Y. Huh/AP

Household debt for homes headed by people under the age of 35 plummeted by 29% from 2007 to 2010. One big reason is the millennials are getting by without buying houses and cars, a report by the Pew Research Center found.?

The millennial generation seems to have figured out the formula to avoiding racking up debt: buy less stuff.

The median debt of American households headed by young adults has plummeted over the course of the great recession, a new study by the Pew Research Center has found.

In all, debt in households headed by people under the age of 35 fell by a whopping 29% between 2007 and 2010, the study said.

RELATED: MONEY PROS: TAKE THIS QUIZ TO SEE IF YOU HAVE TOO MUCH DEBT

By comparison, households headed by adults over the age of 35, debt fell by just 8%.

More good news for millennials was found in an analysis of their credit card debt. While 48% of adults over the age of 35 carried a credit card balance in 2007, just 39% did in 2010.

According to Pew, the sudden frugal streak was best illustrated in two main areas where Americans have routinely found themselves piling on debt: homes and cars.

RELATED: DELAYED INSURANCE CHECKS FOR SANDY VICTIMS COULD SLOW RECOVERY

The share of younger households owning their primary residence fell sharply from 40% in 2007 to 34% in 2011, the study stated.

Whether they couldn?t afford to buy one, or identified automobiles as another source of debt, just 66% of millennial households owned a car in 2011, down seven percentage points from 2007.

While remaining more or less flat for American households lead by adults over the age of 35, the big drops in the percentage of debt for millennials may signify a cultural sea change.

?These shifts in the debt profile of younger adults reflect a broader societal shift toward delayed marriage and household formation that has been under way for decades,? the Pew report stated.

Though student loan debt has continued to edge up over the past 12 years, a record high 22% of younger households reported having no debt whatsoever, which Pew noted was the largest number since the federal government began gathering the data in 1983. ?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nydnrss/life-style/~3/klppOB9BH3Y/story01.htm

match play championship the national enquirer marie colvin cm punk cm punk lint buenos aires train crash

Ronda Rousey doesn?t want to even touch the UFC championship belt before fighting

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- When Ronda Rousey was named the UFC women's bantamweight champion, critics said she didn't deserve the belt and that she should have to fight for it. It turns out she agrees with her critics.

"I don't deserve it. I won't even touch it until I win," Rousey said of the gold and leather belt in sitting in front of her on the table.

[Related: Liz Carmouche never planned to be a role model, but now is relishing the job]

After the press conference, Rousey faced off with Liz Carmouche, her opponent at UFC 157 on Saturday. Traditionally, the champion holds the belt during these pictures, but Rousey held true to her word. Finally, UFC president Dana White draped the belt over her shoulder, much to Rousey's dismay.

Rousey's unwillingness to touch the belt isn't alone in sports. In the NHL, teams who win the Eastern and Western conferences usually won't touch the Prince of Wales Trophy or Clarence S. Campbell Bowl, respectively. With the ultimate goal of lifting the Stanley Cup, many players view picking up these trophies as bad luck. The Philadelphia Flyers touched the Wales trophy before ultimately losing to the Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup finals, proving that Rousey may be on to something.

Related UFC video from Yahoo! Sports

Other popular content on Yahoo! Sports:
? Rockets trade for fifth overall pick in the 2012 draft
? Marlins' Giancarlo Stanton bides time as franchise crumbles again
? Title window closing on UFC's Dan Henderson

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ronda-rousey-doesn-t-want-even-touch-ufc-000025302--mma.html

clayton kershaw tyler perry face transplant maundy thursday fab melo google glasses kim kardashian and kanye west

Trump Twitter mystery! Who hacked The Donald?

Helen A.S. Popkin ? ? ? 9 hrs.

In what appears to be the latest in a minor wave of attacks on Twitter accounts belonging to out-sized corporate entities, an out-of-character tweet from Donald Trump's verified account set the Internet abuzz, and then disappeared, shortly before noon ET on Thursday.

"These hoes think they classy, well that's the class I'm skippen," read the suspect remark issued from @realDonaldTrump. It was a glaring non sequitur following tweets such as "Republicans must be careful with immigration?don?t give our country away," and "Wow, Macy's numbers just in-Trump is doing better than ever ? thanks for your great support!"

"Yes, obviously the account has been hacked and we are looking for the perpetrator," Rhona Graff, senior vice president, assistant to the president of the Trump Organization, told NBC News via email.

This confirmation was quickly echoed by Trump himself, in a tweet that read, "My Twitter has been seriously hacked ? and we are looking for the perpetrators."

Cut off after a single rogue tweet, the Trump Twitter anomaly was far shorter than the Burger King and Jeep takeovers earlier this week. On Monday, Burger King's Twitter account was hacked and renamed McDonalds, and over the course of a hour, sent out 53 tweets (and garnered 73,421 retweets) making light of the situation. The Tuesday attack on Jeep's Twitter account ? which included the erroneous announcement that the car maker had been taken over by Cadillac ? ceased after just 10 minutes and 13 tweets.

Soon after @Jeep regained control, the Twitter accounts of MTV and BET appeared to be compromised. The MTV account tweeted claims the network had been taken over by BET, and BET tweeted it was now owned by MTV. This turned out to be a publicity stunt by the networks, both owned by Viacom. As NBC News reported on Tuesday, the account of a PR representative warned of the hack ahead of time on Twitter and then both MTV and BET copped to the scheme after the "hack."

NBC News has asked the Trump Organization how Trump was able to regain control of his Twitter account so quickly, and will update this story if we receive a response.

Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitterand/or Facebook.

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/trump-twitter-mystery-who-hacked-donald-1C8462918

dan savage new world trade center kellen moore ryan braun bryce harper may day stoudemire