A-Rod is Yankees' $305 million migraine

[Forkboy]

In the fall of 2007, the New York Yankees played their own game of poker when they put down $305 million on Alex Rodriguez. The Yankees were betting in salary and home-run bonuses that Rodriguez would be worth the trouble he was almost guaranteed to cause.

Brian Cashman, the team's general manager, didn't want to do the 10-year contract. Hank Steinbrenner, Cashman's superior, overruled his GM and betrayed his own pledge to exile A-Rod in the event the third baseman opted out of his previous deal.

The Steinbrenners, Cashman, team president Randy Levine -- they all knew that signing up Rodriguez meant signing up for an extended migraine a couple times a year. But they also knew A-Rod to be a hell of a slugger, a megastar vital to YES Network ratings and ticket sales at the new Yankee Stadium to come.

So nearly four years later, do the pros outweigh the cons? Is the liberating championship that Rodriguez delivered in 2009, the first season at the new ballpark, worth all the unwanted drama and distraction he will surely keep creating through 2017?

http://espn.go.com/new-york/mlb/story/_/id/6831651/new-york-yankees-bet-alex-rodriguez-worth-field-trouble-were-right

[Auggie]

1. "...Alex is no different than Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears."

:rofl:

[KamaAina]

2. Why did they have to say migraine?

It makes me think of Bachmann Loser Overdrive. :puke:

[madinmaryland]

3. Have the Roid Sox won a World Series since the spring of 2008??

:hide:

I remember the resident Skankee fan gloating about something a year or two ago.

mim note: The Pirates on their way to.... :P