Alex Rodriguez Faces Biggest Opponent Yet: His Own Team

Alex Rodriguez continues to approach history, so why are the Yankees playing hardball with him?

As you've probably heard, Alex Rodriguez is now tied on the all-time home run list with Willie Mays, sitting at an incredible 660 dingers. While this is still over 100 shy of Barry Bonds' nearly-unfathomable 762, it's still a landmark worth celebrating--and a landmark that the Yankees were previously expected to commemorate with celebration and a big, fat $6 million paycheck to Rodriguez.

Things aren't looking so good on that front.

The agreement Rodriguez signed, to which none of us are privy, of course, was understood to reward him for all of the home run milestones he had yet to conquer: Mays, Ruth, Aaron, and Bonds. But the Yankees are claiming they have no requirement to spend that money, as it was planned on being part of a marketing opportunity, an opportunity that has evaporated due to the disciplinary action and tarnished reputation that Rodriguez has faced in the wake of his performance-enhancing drug scandal.

From ESPN:

"We have the right but not the obligation to do something, and that's it," said Yankees general manager Brian Cashman before Saturday's Yankees-Red Sox game at Fenway Park. "We're going to follow the contract as we follow all contracts, so there is no dispute, from our perspective."

This seems like an incredibly odd approach to take at this point in time. Although it's admittedly very early in the season, he's putting up better power numbers than he has in years (currently slugging .519; he hasn't had a full season over .500 since 2010's .506), and the Yankees seem to be clicking during the first month and change of the season.

Why create a distraction? Why treat your employee--one who has again, been performing well for you--with disdain, publicly at that?

Maybe the Yankees are right not to pay him; maybe they couldn't make back that $6 million in merchandising and other assorted benefits. Maybe the contract will say they owe it to him. But there's a time and a place to handle this issue: the time being at the end of the season and the place being "not in the pages of the New York Post."