I Shall be Released
Neither player had a tremendous final season. Derek finished 2014 hitting just .256/.304/.313 (all career lows for any season he played more than 17 games in), but at least he got to finish.
A-Rod was forced out and played his last game on August 12, 2016. He had a good night, going 1-4 with a double and RBI. And like his bestest friend ever Jeter, Alex also drove in the first Yankees run after they had fallen behind.
The similarities end there.
The game was interesting but in no way thrilling. By the bottom of the fourth, the Yankees had a lead they would never relinquish. And when RHP Dellin Betances closed it out, no one came out to mob Rodriguez, manning third one last time.
And while the fans in attendance were vocally supportive, A-Rod’s ending did not bind The City together in love and worship. He walked off to cheers, but it was a footnote to the season, not the brilliant last chapter as it was for Jeter two years earlier.
But the baseball gods showed up anyway.
And The Thunder Rolls
Alex doesn’t deserve to get into the Hall of Fame for his steroid-aided numbers, but he was always favored by at least some of the gods; his records and bank account make that clear. He must at least be baseball’s patron saint to Janus.
So while the gods might have helped him get his double, they also made the night memorable for suprabaseball reasons. Mortals must remember that everywhere the gods go, they always take the weather. On Jeter’s last night, for example, they calmed the winds and the rains, which made for a glorious night.
Not so for A-Rod.
For him, they brought the thunder and the lightning, and the threat of a distant storm.
Nothing could have capped his career better. As he walked off the field, there might have been more Yankees fans who were glad to see him go than sorry, even though he was the indispensable man in the Yankees 2009 run through the playoffs.
Those nights in sum etched the images of the two Yankees forever; one forever remembered and cherished, the other with a love/hate relationship with the fans. And hopefully soon forgotten.
Or at least that was supposed to be the forever narrative. Now, however, those roles are reversing.