[新聞] A Staple of the News Media, but Is Rodriguez a YES Man?
TV Sports
A Staple of the News Media, but Is Rodriguez a YES Man?
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Published: June 19, 2007
http://0rz.tw/a32KZ
Except for a plaque or a retired number in Monument Park at Yankee
Stadium, there appears to be no greater confirmation of greatness for a
past or present Yankee than to be the subject of a “Yankeeography” on
the YES Network.
Even being the august assistant to the traveling secretary, who slept on
a shelf under his desk, seems like a hollow honor, as George Costanza
learned.
Everyone with a retired number, save for Bill Dickey, who wore No. 8
before Yogi Berra did, has been the subject of a “Yankeeography.” And
among the 20 with plaques, 9 lack an episode in the series, including
Dickey, Lefty Gomez, Allie Reynolds and Red Ruffing.
But the series is not entirely about the old, the dead or the retired.
Four current players — Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada and
Roger Clemens — have been featured. Two more, Hideki Matsui and Andy
Pettitte, will join them in the YES canon of greats later this season.
The conspicuous omission is Alex Rodriguez.
ꄊ "My rule of thumb is you have to be a Yankee for three years,” said
John Filippelli, the president of production and programming for YES.
But Rodriguez is in his fourth.
ꄊ "We were going to do him this year,” Filippelli said. “But based on
his un-A-Rodish year last season, I figured I’d wait another season to
see if he’d become A-Rod again and have another Hall of Fame year. That's
what I’m hoping for. If the stars align, we’ll have one next year.”
Rodriguez’s statistics in 2006 (35 homers, 121 runs batted in and a .290
batting average) have been redeemed so far this season. With 27 home runs,
73 R.B.I. and a .315 average, Rodriguez is closer than ever to entering
the “Yankeeography” pantheon. It would cement his ties to John Sterling,
the team’s radio voice and the host of the series, who has won 11 local
Emmys.
Sterling’s deep connection to Rodriguez and the team is based largely on
his nutty, occasionally catchy, somehow memorable home run calls. Sterling
follows his standard “It is high, it is far, it is gone” — which is
unchanged even for line-drive homers based on his call of Posada’s
screamer Sunday night — with “it’s an A-bomb for A-Rod,” topped off
with, “How A-Rodian!”
‧
The last portion evoked some hooting in yesterday’s morning version of
“Mike and the Mad Dog” program on WFAN and prompted Charles McCord, Don
Imus’s erstwhile newsman, to dream of “A-Rodian tableaux.”
What about the notion that Rodriguez has been denied his “Yankeeography”
because he is not a true Yankee? He’s not homegrown like Jeter, Rivera,
Posada or Pettitte in this generation; a Japanese import like the stoic
Matsui; or a sainted Yankee like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle,
Joe DiMaggio or Don Mattingly. All have “Yankeeography” profiles.
Joe Morgan and Jon Miller touched on the subject of true Yankees during
the broadcast of the Mets-Yankees game Sunday night on ESPN. After a
replay of Rodriguez’s first-inning home run, Morgan said, “I think Alex
is working his way toward being a true Yankee.” Miller replied, “You
think he’s getting close?”
Close to a “Yankeeography,” perhaps?
Filippelli said he was not judging Rodriguez by what defined a “true”
Yankee or by his dismal playoff performances the past two Octobers.
“You look at his April this year and his June, and you see what he can do,”
he said. “He’s had some postseason struggles, but I don’t think this
season is an aberration. He’s a great player. Some great players
struggle in the postseason. Look at Gil Hodges.”
But even a phenomenal season is not a guarantee that a Rodriguez
“Yankeeography” will join those of Paul O’Neill, Bernie Williams,
Sparky Lyle and David Cone on fans’ DVD shelves. If he opts out of his
contract to join the Angels or the Cubs, a biographical tribute to
Rodriguez “would not fit the motif of the Yankees Entertainment & Sports
Network,” Filippelli said.
I hope distance will yield a “Yankeeography” for Don Zimmer.
‧
If a Rodriguez “Yankeeography” becomes a reality, Filippelli said that
no mention would be made of the woman, who was not Rodriguez’s wife,
who was seen with him recently in photos published in The New York Post.
“You don’t have empirical evidence,” he said. “You have anecdotal
suggestion.”
YES’s roster of dwindling “Yankeeography” possibilities includes
Robinson Cano, who needs better third-season statistics to join Tino
Martinez and Elston Howard in YES’s video Acropolis; and Chien-Ming Wang,
who is only in his second full season. But an even better choice would
be Mel Stottlemyre, a three-time 20-game winner who had a distinguished
run as Torre’s pitching coach.
“He’s a possibility,” Filippelli said. “He’d certainly qualify.”
One notion at YES that will not change soon is the invincibility of the
Yankees in the classic games shown on the network. I thought wrongly that
YES had carried the Game 7 loss to Arizona in the 2001 World Series.
“We’re 776 and 0,” Filippelli said. “The Yankees never lose on
‘Yankee Classics.’ But down the road, I might change my mind.”
E-mail: sportsbiz@nytimes.com
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