The New Bronx Zoo, or Bronx Boo Hoo!

A couple of days ago, New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman told reporters that he "no longer feels comfortable talking to A-Rod", which of course refers to New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. New York Yankees GM Brian Cashman is not alone. The New York Yankees, as a team, no longer feel comfortable talking to New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez. In an ongoing public feud between grown men, we've come to an incredibly childish climax. This is the state of the 2013 New York Yankees.

Boy. Where is Billy Martin when you really need him?

How I pine for those simpler times...

We've seen plenty of examples where players are vilified not only by the media or fans, but by the team themselves. Barry Bonds was hated in the Giants clubhouse during his challenge of the home run record. Rickey Henderson often referred to himself in the third person and alienated teammates. Bob Gibson, Don Drysdale, and Nolan Ryan were as intimidating in the clubhouse as they were on the mound. But we've never seen anything like this. Not even during the original Bronx Zoo, the period of time in the late 1970s when George Steinbrenner, Martin and Reggie Jackson lit a fire under the collective asses of the Yankees by, well, flaming each other mercilessly, was there anything like this. No "Straw That Stirs The Drink". No Bucky Dent. No eventual justification with a World Series win. This is just sad. We're not watching big personalities engage in big clashes that make for big stories. We're watching millionaires, professional athletes and high-ranking executives, making comments to the media that paint a much different picture. It feels like we're seeing two 8th grade girls spread nasty rumors about each other because one of them took performance-enhancing drugs and the other wants to get out of their contractual agreement. All right, maybe that analogy got away from me, but the point still stands: this is not a power struggle so much as it is a two-way smear campaign between one of the most respected and simultaneously hated franchises and one of the most respected and simultaneously hated players.

So who do you root for in this situation? Do you root for anyone? I've been a Yankees fan since I was 6, so for what it's worth, here's my two cents (coincidentally, my two cents is worth much less than that): if you must absolutely pick a side here, don't. Alex Rodriguez is a cheater with an ego for the ages, and the Yankees are trying to find an easy and immoral way out of their stupid financial blunder. There is no hero here, no good guy to be found. A-Rod could have been honest and played the game the right way, and George's genius progeny could have not signed a 32 year old to a 10-year contract. Alex could have been more forthcoming with his connection to Biogenesis or accepted his suspension, and Cashman could have fought harder in 2007 when he was against resigning the man. Rodriguez could stop shooting his mouth off and paying lipservice to God knows whoever is still rooting for him, and the Yankees could have saved $275 million and a decade's worth of headaches by letting him walk before the 2008 season. Instead, both sides are getting exactly what they deserve.

This...doesn't look the way I expected it to.

Understandably, neither side bargained for this in December 2003 when the Yanks stepped in at the eleventh hour and acquired Rodriguez from the Rangers, preventing the Red Sox from doing the same (a failed trade that looks brilliant in retrospect). The Yankees thought they were trading for a player that would wind up breaking the home run record while in pinstripes, and A-Rod thought he was going to spend the rest of his illustrious career playing for the team he loved. While the deal didn't really pay dividends for either side until culminating in a championship win in 2009, it was marred the prior offseason by Rodriguez's admission that he had, in fact, taken steroids while in Texas. He asked everyone for forgiveness, and also pleaded with us to only judge him based on what he did after that. "What did he do after that?" you may be asking. Well...

2009: 124 games, 30 HR, 100 RBI, .286 AVG, .934 OPS

Those are pretty good numbers, but indicative of a slump for A-Rod. No matter, he's still one of the greatest players of all time, and he was only 34 at the time. A player naturally starts to see his abilities decrease, so that's not necessarily the product of no longer taking steroids, meaning he was being honest when he said he only took steroids up to 2003. Right?

Here's what A-Rod did the next 3 seasons:

2010: 137 games, 30 HR, 125 RBI, .270 AVG, .847 OPS
2011: 99 games, 16 HR, 62 RBI, .276 AVG, .823 OPS
2012: 122 games, 18 HR, 57 RBI, .272 AVG, .783 OPS

That's a big dropoff. And he missed more time with injuries than he ever had before (specifically, injuries to his hip and knee that fall in line with those suffered by steroid users). But even with his stats serving as tangible proof, as well as this whole Biogenesis thing, Alex continues to deny he used steroids after 2003, even though it would appear that he not only kept using them after that, but that he kept using them until his 2009 admission. And after that, apparently.

It's up to each one of us, individually, to decide whether we side with the Yankees, A-Rod, or neither. But one thing seems certain: if this is to be the next chapter in the decades-long saga of the Bronx Zoo, let's hope 2045 holds some more interesting drama than this.