How do we explain this recent stretch of playoff success?
The easy answer would be that his steroids secret is out and the pressure is off, but there's definitely more to it than that.
In 2000, Rodriguez became the highest paid player in baseball by signing a 10 year $252 million dollar contract with the Texas Rangers. Ever since that point A-Rod has been (excuse the pun) a lightning rod of media criticism and he hasn't handled it well.
Case in point, he once said "When people write bad things about me, I don't know if it's because I'm good-looking, I'm biracial, I make the most money, I play on the most popular team."
There's no doubt that being under the microscope has made A-Rod a headcase. Until now he's been so concerned with what everyone else thinks of him that he hasn't been able to perform when it matters most. For the longest time it was like he was playing the "what if" game in his head while at the plate. I think it started with, "What will the papers say about me if I get this clutch hit?" and soon turned into, "What will the papers say about me if I don't get this clutch hit?"
He's so obsessed with being praised that his focus is more on that than allowing his physical tools to take over. It's sort of like when I pick my head up to look at a golf shot before I actually hit it. About 99% of the time that shot is terrible.
A-Rod so desperately wants everything to be perfect that when things go wrong he gets easily frustrated. When his relationship with Jeter was obviously a little strained, he kept avoiding questions about it before finally saying, "The reality is there's been a change in the relationship over 14 years and, hopefully, we can just put it behind us. You go from sleeping over at somebody's house five days a week, and now you don't sleep over. It's just not that big of a deal."
A-Rod is also a head case because the media has exposed his personal life. Some say that his personal life should not be covered, but others say that it's the price he pays for being a celebrity. Either way, in May of '07 A-Rod was photographed entering a hotel with a blonde woman in Toronto. It was later revealed that she was an exotic dancer from Las Vegas. Over a year later, in July of '08, his wife filed for divorce amidst swirling rumors about A-Rod's relationship with Madonna.
To me, his relationship with Madonna was rock bottom. I mean, there were reports of late night helicopter rides to each other's apartments, she got him into Kaballah (the mystical aspect of Judaism), and an identified source claims that A-Rod once said, "She's my fucking soulmate."
A-Rod's turnaround (if you will) began when he soon became "bored" with Kaballah and essentially kicked Madonna to the curb. What I think really happened is that A-Rod realized that Madonna (one of only a handful of women in the world that is more well known than him) is more of a whack job than he is. At first he was like, "This is cool. I'm plowing Madonna. She's really famous. We have a spiritual connection." And then the more time he spent with her the more he realized that she was out of her mind. He finally saw a relationship from the other side and it scared the shit out of him.
By the time A-Rod got over Madonna another shitstorm was waiting on his doorstep. In February of 2009 Sports Illustrated's Selena Roberts reported that A-Rod had tested positive for anabolic steroids back in 2003. A-Rod, with his orange skin and purple lips , finally faced the music and admitted that he used banned substances from 2001-2003 citing the enormous amount of pressure that he was under. While some see this as the lowest of lows for A-Rod I see it as the second step to his emotional turnaround (getting freaked out by Madonna being the first step).
The final step in A-Rod's 180 started in May when it was first reported that he was dating Kate Hudson. Hudson is perfect for Rodriguez for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost she's a big name babe, but she's not a bigger name that A-Rod. Furthermore she's previously dated a superstar athlete (Lance Armstrong), a headcase (Owen Wilson), and like A-Rod she's a divorced parent. Also, not for nothing, she grew up in the world of celebrity (she is the daughter of Goldie Hawn).
The turnaround is now complete, but only because A-Rod has shown that he is immune to an ailment that has plagued many a man throughout the course of time. This ailment, of course, is most commonly known as Girlfriend Syndrome (GFS). Whether it be a high school player (virtually every guy you know) or a professional athlete (Tony Romo, among others) guys have a tendency to perform miserably whenever they know that their girlfriend/love interest is watching them compete in person. If a guy knows that his girlfriend is in the audience he'll usually press and try too hard to impress her with his skills on the field/court. Somehow A-Rod still crushes the ball even though he knows that Hudson is sitting right there behind the Yankee dugout. Honestly I can't tell what he's hitting harder, the ball or her vagina after the games.
Now that the Yankees have made it to the World Series all eyes will be on A-Rod to see how he performs on baseball's biggest stage. Will he continue to be a force in the middle of the Yankee lineup or will he revert back to his old postseason ways?
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