By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT Published: December 16, 2006
Toward the end of his most challenging season in baseball, Alex Rodriguez told Bob Costas in a nationally syndicated radio interview that he might not play once his current 10-year contract expired after the 2010 season.
“I don’t really see myself playing past this contract,” Rodriguez said on “Costas on the Radio,” a weekly program that is heard on 120 stations, but not in New York. The interview was conducted toward the middle of September and began airing Sept. 16.
In the interview, Rodriguez is less specific at other moments, saying he might play beyond his current contract “but not way past it.”
Professional athletes often speak of retirement, only to keep playing for as long as they are physically capable of standing up. Nevertheless, Rodriguez’s remarks, coming toward the conclusion of a season in which he struggled in the field and at the plate and was often booed by Yankees fans, seemed to take Costas by surprise.
“I thought the phone would be ringing off the hook the next day,” Costas said of an anticipated news media reaction that never came, perhaps because many reporters remained unaware of what was said.
“I believe he was speaking honestly from the frame of mind that he was in at the time,” Costas said in a telephone interview yesterday. “He was very matter of fact and there was no anger in his voice. It was a tone of resignation. He said a lot of the joy of the game was gone, and even if had a reasonable shot at breaking records, he would walk away from the game.”
Attempts to reach Rodriguez’s agent, Scott Boras, to comment on the interview were unsuccessful.
Rodriguez will be 35 when his record-breaking $252 million contract expires. He has 464 career home runs, and if he keeps playing until he is 40, or older, he would appear to have a good chance to set the career home run mark, regardless of what number Barry Bonds finally reaches. Still, Rodriguez told Costas that records would not affect his decision.
“To me, I have never been a guy that worries about numbers or has concerned himself with where I stand in the history books,” Rodriguez said. “I care about one thing, and that is winning, and that is it.”
The Yankees have not won a World Series in Rodriguez’s three seasons in the Bronx, and he has increasingly struggled in postseason play, to the point where he batted eighth in the Yankees’ final game in October, when they were eliminated in the first round by Detroit.
In the weeks that followed, there was speculation that the Yankees might even look to trade Rodriguez. That speculation has now died, but the issue of Rodriguez’s comfort level in New York has not. He seemed to acknowledge that issue in the interview, telling Costas: “I think the demand that is put on a player like me is so much more then the generic everyday guy.”
