With this story, the "A-rod desperately wants to be liked" myth is OFFICIALLY DEAD:

• A-rod ditches Yogi Berra Benefit:

From the NY Times article by Harvey Araton (11/23/06)--it's chilling about A-rod:

"Corny as it all may seem, scripted as Jeter can sound, he typically puts the best franchise face forward. At a memorial service last month in California several days after pitcher Cory Lidle'’s death in a Manhattan plane crash, there was Jeter, right alongside Torre.

• Where was Rodriguez? He is not the manager, or the captain, as is Jeter, but what about his alleged standing as the team's reigning superstar, its most scrutinized player, A-lightning-Rod?

Too many times -- as with the Sports Illustrated confessional on the eve of the playoffs -- Rodriguez seems to miss the impact of his actions, or inaction.

• Last Wednesday, after attending his own charity poker tournament in Manhattan, he canceled on a major fund-raiser the next night at the Yogi Berra Museum in Little Falls, N.J. According to a person in the Rodriguez camp who spoke yesterday on condition of anonymity, A-Rod'’s mother, Lourdes, had suddenly been hospitalized -- certainly a legitimate excuse and far better than the reason David Wright'’s people gave for him not showing. (Wright had been inadvertently double-booked that night.)

But Wright is a Met, A-Rod a Yankee,

• and because he has a history around town of blowing off events (including one of Torre'’s last year), because the call to the museum to cancel was made not by Rodriguez but by one of his employees,
• because there was an A-Rod sighting last Friday night at courtside of the Knicks-Heat game in Miami, the museum people and the Berra family and even the Yankees president, Randy Levine, were said to be in a snit, with the impression that A-Rod too often gives: he just doesn't get it."
• IMPRESSION? I'D SAY THAT'S AN ACTUALITY. And "in a snit" is an insulting way to describe the shock and sadness that must've been felt by many involved.

"A personal call to Berra a day or two or even three after the event is all it would have taken to deliver an expression of sincerity, to let Berra and the Yankees know that A-Rod does respect the tradition, the legacy and, in this case, the patriarchal standing of Berra, 81, as the greatest living Yankee."

• THIS IS UTTERLY REVOLTING. I'M JUST SORRY A-ROD HAS RECEIVED MARIANO'S SUPPORT UP TO THIS POINT. THE IDEA AROD WANTS TO BE LOVED IS OFFICIALLY IN THE TRASH CAN.

"Raw power may make you a most valuable player, but A-Rod, as talented and hard-working as he is, still hasn'’t mastered the subtleties of team interaction, the intangibles that postseason awards typically don'’t address."

• ARATON'S CHILLING EPITAPH ON AROD: IT'S JETER WHO STILL STANDS.

"Without them, there is no way for A-Rod to reach the pedestal on which Jeter still stands."

from NY Times Article 11/23/06 by Harvey Araton (Times Select req.)

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