If Anyone Knows Anything About Playoff Success, It' Reggie Jackson

You sure can't tag this article "anecdotal bullshit", because this is Reggie F'in Jackson talking. I realize that the baseball world is inundated with A-Rod and Yankees crap lately, but this article from the NY Post seems particularly egregious to me. So here goes:

"Meet the New Mr. October: Reggie Believes A-Rod Will Keep On Rollin"

"Rollin"?

October 3, 2007 -- The man who spit in the face of October pressure believes Alex Rodriguez won't be smothered by it for the third straight postseason.

“I think he will do super well," Reggie Jackson said yesterday ...

"SUPER" well, Reggie? Is that really what you meant to say? "I think he willl do SUPER well!"? Up until now, I thought Reggie Jackson was pretty manly; now I think he's a bit effeminate.

“Look at the year he had. You can't have a better year than he had. Who was the last guy to roll into the postseason with the kind of year he had this year?"

Albert Pujols, last year.

Jackson knows what makes Rodriguez tick;

Which is? A watch battery? Lime jello? Strippers? Boos? His Collector's Edition DVD of Mallrats?

Oh. You're not going to tell me. Darn.

understands that despite the MVP season, there are people waiting to empty their lungs with boos for the one guy who the spotlight will be on from beginning to end.
“They booed him from the start this year," said Jackson, who will be with the Yankees for today's workout at Jacobs Field.

Yawn.

Loudly booed when he dropped a foul pop in the first inning on Opening Day, Rodriguez turned the boos to a summer full of cheers, and chants of “MVP, MVP" and finished with 54 homers, 156 RBIs and a .314 average. Now, that success is something Jackson believes Rodriguez is going to lean on.

“He got off to a great start and never stopped," Jackson said. “And it wasn't all smooth. He couldn't have gone through anything tougher than what happened to him in Toronto and the family situation. It wasn't like he got a free pass."

Hyperbolic crap. He could've gone through something much worse. In fact, word has it that A-Rod and his wife are expecting another child. It could've been much tougher; he could've been hit by a bus. Except most bus drivers are better at driving buses than baseball writers are at writing about baseball.

Is Rodriguez's regular season enough for him to bounce back from an 0-for-4 effort in a Game 1 defeat?

This is quite the non sequitur Is he referring to the past or speculating about the future? The Yankees haven't even started playing their series yet!

Remember in 2005, Rodriguez was coming off a year in which he would be voted the MVP and soiled the bed in the ALDS against the Angels when he batted .133 (2-for-15) and set the record for the most inhales and exhales at the plate. The deeper the breath, the worse the at-bat.

I am good at remembering this because writers like you have mentioned it in every article this season.

Rodriguez promised in March this year was going to be different, and it was. Instead of his life being an open book,

huh?

what he said was measured and rarely in depth. Now, on the verge of his fourth - and possibly last - postseason as a Yankee, Rodriguez is poised to wash away the stench of 2005 and 2006 (1-for-14; .071 against the Tigers).

“I am focused on 2007," Rodriguez said following a brief workout at Yankee Stadium. “It's a whole new year. I am taking one pitch at a time."

I feel like sports stars have to give cliched bites to writers because that's all the feeble-brained writers can handle. I think it'd be funnier if A-Rod announced, "Fuck it. It's a whole new year. I am taking it TWO pitches at a time, and when I hit TWO home runs at a time maybe you goddamn writers will stop writing about those thirty goddamn at bats!"

Since Indians starter C.C. Sabathia is murder on lefties - they hit .203 (41-for-202) against him - a larger responsibility falls on Derek Jeter and Rodriguez, who are a combined 19-for-39 (.487) against the lefty they haven't seen since Sept. 1, 2004.

Poorly written. Sentence is too long; separate last clause into independent sentence. I will now stop picking on grammar.

And you know who will get the blame if Jeter and Rodriguez don't hit Sabathia and the Yankees lose, right? It won't be Jeter.

Which is a damn shame, because it seems to me that in your previous sentence, you said that Jeter and Rodriguez share the responsibility. It's too bad you asshole writers are willing to assign Jeter a share of the responsibility, but you know goddamn well that you won't assign Jeter a share of the blame.

“When you come to New York you get invited to the dance every year," Rodriguez said. “You keep getting chances."

Wow. This is competes with the opening quote for "Most Effeminate Thing Said By Current or Former Yankee Superstar". I wonder if A-Rod was sad about not getting invited to dances every year when he was in high school. Or maybe when he played in Texas.

With the right to opt out of the final three years of his contract, this could be Rodriguez's final chance to win a World Series in pinstripes. It's a chance Jackson believes Rodriguez will finally cash in on.

“He has got to be digging himself," Jackson said. “If that was me, I would be digging myself once a day. The year he had was unbelievable."

Digging himself? I don't think I even know what that means. Speak English, Reggie, or at least spit your candy bar out when you're talking.

Now we will see how it ends. Will it be a springboard or an albatross? The guy who had put Mr. in front of October is betting on the former.

YOU BE THE JUDGE!

If you think A-Rod is cool, turn to page 81, then buy this poster and send it to George King.

If you think A-Rod sucks, go back to page 1 and realize that this is what real baseball fans want to do to you.