With regards to the A-Rod plays being "bush league," give me a break. Ty Cobb is laughing at this kind of stuff. This is amateur hour compared to what has been done in the past. And other sports all have this sort of thing - football, for example, has hard counts and linemen try to throw each other off all the time - so frankly, this stuff may not happen as often as A-Rod says it does, but it does happen. So, I really don't see any issue with this, except ESPN constantly playing it over, and will probably bring in an audio expert on Baseball Tonight.
It's not how I played the game, or how I want my kids to play the game, or my Little League team, but again, I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with it, given the Yankees situation, the prevalence of such plays in Major League baseball, and the past history of baseball as a game of questionable plays.
Hell, its not like he sharpened his spikes and slid into second, right?
I agree that there has been a history of bush league stunts in baseball, and cobb, while recognized as one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) ball players, is widely regarded as one of the dirtiest. That there is precedent of some cheap stunts, however, doesn't make A-Rod's stunt any less bush league. As I said earlier, it's not the worst thing that's happened in the game, but baseball has its own way of getting back at you. For better or worse, he'll probably take a fastball between the shoulder blades later in the season, and everyone moves on.
