Wallace Matthews, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

Is A-Rod ready to play? No one is saying

TAMPA, Fla. -- While most of the Yankees regulars were enjoying their final days at home before reporting to training camp, Alex Rodriguez was at the Yankees minor league complex taking batting practice. On the day position players reported to camp, A-Rod was across the street, hitting, running, fielding and throwing, having already taken his physical. And by the time the Yankees held their first full-squad workout, Rodriguez was a full five days into his own spring training, after having had a year to do nothing but train and prepare himself.

So if any Yankee should be ahead of all the others, it is A-Rod.

And yet, it is still unknown whether Rodriguez will play in the Yankees' spring training opener on Tuesday against the Phillies in Clearwater, or even in an intrasquad game, against a pitching machine, that Joe Girardi has scheduled for Monday. That seems strange, considering how Rodriguez has spoken about having a year to work out rather than rehab, and considering the fact that he already has done so much more than his teammates. Not to mention that Girardi repeatedly has stressed the need for A-Rod to get as many at-bats against live pitching as possible this spring.

But when asked if Rodriguez would play on Tuesday, Girardi said, “I’m not sure yet. I’m not sure.”

The manager said he anticipated “almost everyone” would play in Monday’s intrasquad game, which opened the door to the obvious question: Does everyone include Alex?

“I don’t know.”

That left the impression that Rodriguez would make the decision on his fitness and tell Girardi if he felt ready to play.

But when he was asked later if he would play on Monday or Tuesday, A-Rod seemed to throw the ball back into Girardi’s court.

“I haven’t talked to Joe,” A-Rod said in regards to Monday’s game. “If I’m in the lineup, I’ll play, yeah.”

But Joe said he’s leaving it up to you.

“I’ll talk to Joe first.”

Do you feel ready to play?

“I’ll talk to Joe first.”

Which means either Alex has something to tell Joe that he doesn’t want the media -- and the public -- to know first, or that he wants to ask the manager’s advice on whether he should play.

Or it could just be Al being Al, playing coy with the press while knowing exactly want he intends to do.

In any event, no one outside of Alex and Joe, and maybe not even them, knows whether the Yankees’ $61 million man is fit to play yet, even against a pitching machine.

Certainly, it is impossible to tell from the drills we have seen so far. A-Rod hit a couple of Danilo Valiente's BP soft tosses over the fence at Steinbrenner Field on Sunday, as he has in every BP session so far. But when asked by a reporter what he could tell about his swing from those sessions, A-Rod laughed and said, “Not much. You could hit that pitching.”

It has also been tough to tell much about A-Rod’s readiness to play the field, especially since he has yet to use a first baseman’s glove when taking grounders at the position the Yankees are trying to teach him.

“The glove’s not broken in yet,” he said. “A couple more days.”

The mystery about A-Rod’s readiness could be contrived, or it could be real: Maybe no one, A-Rod included, really knows if he’s ready to play ball at even the early spring training level. One thing everyone seems to agree upon is that what Rodriguez is attempting to do may not exactly be unprecedented -- Girardi cited Andy Pettitte’s retirement and comeback as somewhat similar -- but it is unusual at the least, and quite difficult at best.

“I don’t know if you can put a rating on (the difficulty),” Girardi said. “But for a guy that was so talented, he has that going for him and has always had a good swing and been fundamentally sound. He has that going for him. The issues become when you’re older and you haven’t played in a while. That’s the issues. You think about a base for a player, he has it in a sense because he was so fundamentally sound.”

But even Girardi, who has said he would not evaluate Rodriguez for the first three or four weeks, admitted he was interested to see what A-Rod has left. “Yeah, because it’s really been a while since we’ve seen that. I’m excited to see that, and see how he does.”

He may not get the chance right away.

“I feel pretty good,” Rodriguez said after Sunday’s workout in sunny 80-degree weather. “I mean, so far, so good. No setbacks, everything looks good.”

He described his new drills at first base as, “Just fun. Just fun. It’s kind of a completely different perspective from being on first base. I remember how difficult it was moving from short to third. It’s kind of weird going from the left-field corner across the mound to go play first. But it’s pretty fun.”

But as far as being ready to play? That will have to remain Alex Rodriguez’s secret, at least for one more day.

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