Feb. 22, 2007 By Scott Miller CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
TAMPA, Fla. -- Let me ask you something.
When Barry Bonds wrapped his hands around Jeff Kent's throat in the middle of that game in 2002 and was pulled away before he made like a crumpled Pepsi can with Kent, do you recall which team went on to win the National League and play in the World Series that fall?
Yep, the San Francisco Fightin' Giants.
When Steve Garvey and Don Sutton went at it in 1978, leaving Garvey with a black eye and Sutton with a bruised cheek, remember who represented the NL in the World Series that October?
Yep, the Los Angeles Dukin' Dodgers.
So there is no play date scheduled for Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. No graham crackers and milk. They won't be sharing a bowl of Goldfish anytime soon.
So what?
New York manager Joe Torre enters his 12th season. (AP) So Derek's no longer McDreamy in New York because he didn't take the bait after A-Rod got all clumsy (again) and dragged Jeter under the spotlight. Instead of sending flowers, Jeter professed that he was "annoyed." I don't blame him.
This whole thing is stuff for Liz Smith, not Red Smith. Who cares?
Time was when Reggie Jackson was more distasteful than liver and onions to Thurman Munson. They still managed to win two World Series' together in the Bronx in 1977 and 1978. And Rodriguez and Jeter both are professional and well-schooled enough that they're not going to come to blows, like Garvey-Sutton or Bonds-Kent.
A-Rod has been all left turns since arriving in New York, and no question his situation long since has passed Loonyville. When he's getting ripped for sunning himself in Central Park, something thousands of other New Yorkers eagerly do each summer, it's reached the theatre of the absurd.
But, what, a public ordination from Jeter is going to keep A-Rod from spitting the bit in the clutch? Pope Jeter blesses A-Rod with the sign of the cross, and now A-Rod rakes in October?
If that's what a grown man making $25 million a year needs, then the problems extend far beyond a relationship issue with one teammate.
Captain of the Yankees or not, if Jeter needs to administer a hug and a pet, he should just go out and get himself a dog.
New Yankees first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz was a high school classmate of A-Rod's. They were best buddies when they were 16. Quarterback A-Rod used to look for wide receiver Mientkiewicz under the Friday night lights in the fall, then they'd all go hang out at Mientkiewicz's house and eat and talk about sports and girls and other things high school boys discuss.
Guess what? A-Rod and Mientkiewicz are not going out to dinner every night down here, either. They are men now, not boys. There are wives and kids to spend time with when the day's work is finished.
Rodriguez's comments about Jeter to Esquire magazine in 2001 were both arrogant and stupid. There is no taking words back. They're out there.
Jeter's refusal to throw Rodriguez a public bone maybe isn't the most compassionate and mature thing he's ever done.
But the notion that these two must give each other public back rubs in order for the Yankees to win and for A-Rod to succeed is the most ridiculous thing this side of another George Steinbrenner statement.
As general manager Brian Cashman points out, it isn't like the Cold War between the two just started, and A-Rod won an MVP award the year before last while playing alongside Jeter.
So, no, as New York chooses sides, Cashman is not considering interceding and arranging a play date between his two marquee infielders.
"It's just noise," he told me Thursday, correctly.
In perhaps the most impossible city in the world to do so, Jeter has mastered the art of keeping his private life private. His Flavor of the Month romances -- Mariah Carey, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel -- his inner-most thoughts, his relationships with teammates, nothing escapes from his lock box. Jeter once was close to then-teammate Chuck Knoblauch, too. Then they had a falling out and Jeter iced him. Details? Under lock and key, to this day.
Jeter, 32, is exceptional at compartmentalizing, and if that's what helps make him tick -- captain or no captain -- then he's earned the right to keep doing things his way. Joe DiMaggio did OK keeping things private.
I'll tell you who also didn't need to hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Paul O'Neill, that's who. And Tino Martinez. Scott Brosius never needed to share. Bernie Williams didn't need to step from the playing field to a psychiatrist's couch.
All this nonsense does is reinforce how unique and special those 1996-2000 Yankees clubs were. Williams' apparent departure for good this spring -- no guaranteed big league job, so he's still not here -- signifies the end of an era. The class and grace that went with those Yankees finally has been overtaken by insecurity and ham-handedness.
At 31, Rodriguez still doesn't have a sense of who he is. He remains a lost ball in tall weeds. That doesn't make him a bad person. It doesn't mean he'll never figure it out.
But there is something to be said for helping yourself before you can accept help from others.
This one issue is not a litmus test of Jeter's leadership skills as captain, just as Rodriguez being dropped to eighth in the batting order last October was not a referendum on the totality of his career.
Frosty relations between the two make for lots of juice and terrific people watching. What it won't do is prohibit the Yankees from winning. If you would have seen top pitching prospects Phillip Hughes and Humberto Sanchez throw live batting practice to Jason Giambi, Hideki Matsui and others under a warm Florida sun Thursday morning, you'd know that a Yankees team once in danger of aging too rapidly now -- finally -- has more where Chien-Ming Wang came from.
"He's like a young Rocket," said Giambi, referring to Roger Clemens, in the signature quote that will be attached to Hughes for years to come. "The ball jumps out of his hand."
How quickly Hughes progresses, the health of Andy Pettitte's elbow, Mike Mussina's consistency, closer Mariano Rivera fending off old age, Matsui's wrist remaining in one piece ... all of these issues are far more relevant to the Yankees winning than whether Jeter and A-Rod are buds.
"It's usually not short for stories around here, that's for sure," said Pettitte in a circus-never-left-town while he was playing for Houston moment Thursday morning. "You look at it, and you grin. It never, hopefully, affects things going on, how we perform."
It won't. Here, nobody is in charge of bringing juice boxes and orange slices after the game. This isn't a high school dance.
