New and True in Yankee Blue

Last week, the New York Yankees proudly welcomed their newest member. There wasn't a press conference or a drawn-out podium spiel. There wasn't even a news release. Last Thursday night, July 14th, 2005, Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez became a Yankee.

There's a distinction between wearing the pinstripes and being a New York Yankee. You're not a Yankee just because Bob Sheppard says so. Being a Yankee isn't about statistics or salary or track record. People who unbendingly argue that there is no such thing as a "True Yankee" wouldn't be able to see Shoeless Joe Jackson and the other ballplayers if they were in Field of Dreams. They don't believe. And if you ask any diehard baseball fan, believing is what makes baseball so exceptional.

True Yankees are like your grandmother's signature chocolate chip cookies — imperfectly perfect, special, and completely genuine. Other chocolate chip cookies are good. You accept them. You try them, yet all the while you know that your grandmother's cookies will always be True.

Statistically, Alex Rodriguez may end up being the greatest baseball player ever to grip a bat.

Financially, Alex Rodriguez may end up being the greatest grossing baseball player ever to spit a sunflower seed.

However, two lingering questions hang like Hideki Irabu's splitters over A-Rod's legacy:

1. Will he ever win a World Series? Or, will he emulate his boyhood idol, Dan Marino, the man to which he wears No. 13 in tribute to, and become the greatest player in his sport never to be crowned a champion?

2. The second question was if Alex Rodriguez (.318/27/78) would ever be distinguished by team recognition in addition to his amazing individual feats. Would he ever be a True Yankee?

And now, finally, after a season and half of playing in the Bronx, the latter question has been answered by one thunderous crack of the bat...

True Yankees have markedly Yankee Moments. Bucky Dent over the Green Monster in '78 . Jim "The King" Leyritz off Mark Wohlers in '96. David Wells' Perfect Game ("half-drunk") in '98. Hideki Matsui's Opening Day Grand Slam in '03. The list goes on.

Yankee Moments are pure. They are commonly re-enactments of those backyard wiffle-ball games with your brothers and neighbors. In those moments, anyone can crush the ball over the imaginary Green Monster, sprint from the stump to the bush to the old sneaker to the hat and back to the stump, all while the crowd screams — or at least your mom calls you in for dinner. These moments make you feel like you've hit gold, when really the only thing you were hitting was puberty.

Billy Crystal couldn't have written a better script for Alex Rodriguez's Yankee Moment.

The scene's location was Fenway Park, home of the World Champion Boston Red Sox. 35,232 extras were on the set to witness the greatest rivalry in sports on a striking summer's night. With the score tied at six, the game headed into the ninth inning.

Curt Schilling loped out of the Red Sox bullpen to pitch in his first game since returning from a lengthy stretch on the Disabled List. Schilling had been shifted to a relief role while Boston closer and the Yankees' first-half MVP, Keith Foulke, recovers from knee surgery. As a noticeably heavier Curt Schilling ran to the mound, Fenway erupted with a standing, jumping, screaming, shrieking ovation that registered a 1.3 on the Richter scale.

Schilling can be outspoken. He can be arrogant. He's never met a conversation he hasn't liked. To be curt, Red Sox fans don't care. Pitching injured, with a sock visibly drenched in blood, Schilling stymied the Yankees last October with pitches wounding the strike zone and a fastball that spoke fluent "heat." He's the face and garrulous voice of Red Sox Nation. He's the reason why many New England residents can now die in peace.

Schilling made his way to the hill, massaged the baseball, toed the slab, and then peered into the Yankees' first batter of the inning, Gary Sheffield.

Sheffield, who legally swings the most violent utensil in professional sports, fouled off Schilling's first offering.

Meanwhile, cut-away to Rodriguez. The nine-time all-star was peering in from the on-deck circle and I'll bet that he wasn't reflecting upon how he became the youngest player to 400 homers or one of only three men (Jimmy Foxx, Babe Ruth) to hit 35 jacks, score 100 runs, and drive in 100 runs for seven straight seasons. Maybe Rodriguez was hearing the voices. Maybe he was thinking about what Schilling had said about the frivolous "slap-play" with Bronson Arroyo in the eighth inning of Game 6 of the ALCS last postseason.

"That was freakin' junior high school baseball right there," Schilling stated. Let me ask you. Does Derek Jeter do that? You know for a fact that he doesn't, because Derek Jeter is a class act and a freakin' professional."

Ball one to Sheffield.

Maybe A-Rod was thinking about how he wanted to counter back to Schilling's comments, but had decided it was better not to.

Foul ball. Strike two to Sheffield.

Next, remarks from Boston outfielder Trot Nixon may have snuck under the helmet and into A-Rod's head. "When people ask me about the Yankees, I tell them about Jeter and Bernie Williams and (Jorge) Posada," Nixon had said. "I don't tell them about Rodriguez."

Ball two from Schilling to Sheffield.

Alex Rodriguez is a smart guy. He may give the company line more often than Bill Lumbergh from Office Space, but he knows what people think and what they say about him. How people suppose that he's self-absorbed. That he only cares about statistics. How he sacrificed Ws in favor of more green than Shrek's makeup kit when he signed a $250 million dollar contract with Texas. How you can't win with 24 teammates and one Alex Rodriguez on your roster.

Sheffield fouls off the 2-2 pitch.

Rodriguez takes his last warm-up swings. Maybe he thinks about how he has become loathed by baseball fans in Seattle, Texas, and Boston, and by casual fans all over. He thinks about how he's merely a talented baseball player who happens to make an ungodly amount of money.

He thinks about how his income shadows over who he is. People don't recognize that he's a considerate person. They don't talk about how he is a National Spokesman for The Boys' and Girls' Clubs of America. How he, a celebrity athlete, recently revealed his success with therapy to a world where athletes strive to maintain a macho, water-cooler tossing, bling-sporting image. And moreover, how he and his wife, Cynthia, donated $200,000 to a mental health program at the Children's Aid Society in Washington Heights this summer and how he vigorously strives to provide help for children who endure similar pain as he did when his father left his family at age 9.

Alex Rodriguez is not a bad person. He's not someone who calls out other players publicly. He doesn't beat up cameramen nor is he implicated for steroid use. He's just a phenomenal baseball player. He's a superstar who gets his uniform dirty and will do whatever, even becoming a third baseman, if it means a championship. He knows that you can have all the money in the world, but unless Jose Canseco's selling, you can't buy a ring.

That being said, as Schilling was releasing a 2-2 splitter to Sheffield, maybe Rodriguez came to the revelation that this was time for his Yankee Moment.

Sheffield viciously smoked the pitch off the Green Monster scoreboard in left-center for a double. The Monster was shaken up by the liner, but said it would be day-to-day.

So here it was: 6-6 in the ninth. The first-place Red Sox opposing the quickly-approaching Yankees. A-Rod versus the Big Schill. The go-ahead run was squirming off second-base.

A-Rod jaunted to the plate. He tightened his batting gloves, and then adjusted his helmet so that the interlocked "NY" flawlessly faced forward for Schilling to see.

Schilling checked Sheffield and delivered his first pitch to A-Rod. Rodriguez then unleashed his first swing as a Yankee.

Boom.

A-Rod absolutely crushed a low splitter for a two-run homerun off the back-wall of the centerfield bleachers. Rodriguez circled the bases, knowing that this was his response to Schilling, to Nixon, and to all others who waited in line to vilify him. And ironically, this was more poignant than words could have ever been. Curt Schilling stood there, front and center, took his hat off and wiped his brow. As luck would have it, it was Schilling who had just turned the keys to Alex Rodriguez's Yankee Moment.

For The Moment and the game to be complete, New York's closer, Mariano Rivera, would have to enact some revenge of his own against the top of the Red Sox lineup. While his microscopic ERA (0.89) sounds more like an amount George Costanza would tip, Rivera's only two blown saves were against Boston back in the first week of the season. Rivera proceeded to strike out the side in the ninth. Ballgame over. Yankees win, 8-6.

One game ends, one True Yankee emerges.

My father actually had tickets to see this memorable game. His seats were directly behind home plate with a few friends. Unfortunately though, my dad had to give his seat away because his job called for him to travel to Dallas that night.

Obviously, I talked to him the next morning all about the game. He sounded like a bully had stolen his lunch money. I tried, in vain, to make him feel better about his absence from the game. "It could have been worse, Dad ... it could have been a Perfect Game or something."

"It was perfect," he said.