A-Rod...Why boo him?

Yankee fans have got to be the most spoiled fans in all of sports. Here you have a guy who is the best player in baseball and you are booing him even though he is still having a very good year by any reasonable standard (ba .284, 20 hr, 68 rbi). The Yankees are only a game and a half out of first in the east as of today, and yet that is still not good enough. I understand that he is the most highly paid baseball player, and that to whom much is given much is expected, but the guy is trying hard, he isn't blaming anyone for his defensive problems, and he is helping the team win. You can't ask anymore than that. I don't have any problem with booing per se; the fans buy tickets and therefore have a right to boo. But in this case it makes no sense. If A-Rod were really having a Chuck Knoblauch type year it might make sense, but he isn't, and furthermore the Yankees are winning. Every other team in baseball would love to have his services, but the Yankees are the exception to every rule. To be a true Yankee you have to do something great in the post season. Of course by that logic Bucky Dent and Jim Leyritz are "true Yankees" even though both were mediocre players not even one tenth as good as A-Rod. Ah, such is the silly definition of success in pro sports. Forever will the non champions in pro sports be down graded simply because their team was unable to win the title. Dan Marino was the greatest quarterback in NFL history and yet many hold Joe Montana up as the better player because of all his success. The idea is that if you are such a great player you should be able to make the other players around you better, but that implies that every great player must be a leader and that simply is not the case. A-Rod is a great talent but that does not mean that it is his responsibility to act as the leader of the team. His job is to play well and that is what he does. Last year he won the MVP, and this year he is again for the 10th consecutive year putting up All-Star caliber numbers. There is no one in the history of baseball that has had as much success as A-Rod has this early in a career. He is only thirty and yet is just 51 home runs away from 500. That is something to be celebrated, not booed and if Yankee fans had any real respect or knowledge of the game they would understand that. Instead they live in a fantasy camp of success that has blinded them to the point that they think A-Rod is somehow the cause of their problems. Their only real problem is that they do not know how to accept failure gracefully, or to acknowledge that their players are trying their hardest. Winning isn't everything, it really isn't. Playing the game hard and beautifully, with class and dignity is what sports are all about. That is how A-Rod plays, but Yankee fans are so spoiled by their success, and so greedy for more that they loose sight of all that. That is why winning isn't everything. In an attempt to win often the beauty of the game, the dignity of the game, good sportsmanship and class are lost. Look at the steroids scandal; that is the perfect example of the cult of success corrupting the game to the point where it is often disgusting to look at. The way Yankee fans have behaved toward A-Rod is equally disgusting, but so is life as a Yankee.