TAMPA — Alex Rodriguez had a No. 13 Yankees jersey on his back and threw on a pair of pinstriped pants with his pant legs rolled up high so you could see his high socks for his first day on the job.
The Yankees’ new spring training instructor for three days this week and three more in mid-March showed up for work Tuesday looking fit and trim … looking like he can still send BP fastball after BP fastball over the wall at Steinbrenner Field.
There will no none of that this spring … or ever.
After watching a lot of fielding practice and batting practice – some of it while standing at his old third base spot behind a screen – A-Rod made it clear in a news conference that there will be no comeback.
Asked point blank if he’s retired, A-Rod answered, “Yes.”
Asked if he thought today about wanting to play again, he responded, “Zero.”
As usual, A-Rod, 41 years young as of last July, had some interesting things to say in his presser, this one lasting 13 minutes.
Here are 10 of his best quotes:
A-Rod on what he was thinking when he was standing on the field watching BP with his arms crossed: “I was trying to emulate kind of how Lou Piniella used to walk around. He was my great teacher obviously when I was a teenager. You kind of reminisce a little bit. These kids have so much potential. There’s so much upside here.”
Why he won’t consider a comeback when he’s just four homers shy of 700: “I know it was kind of the general sense that I would come back and play last year, but being a Yankee means everything to me. I’m grateful to Hank and Hal (Steinbrenner) for giving me the opportunity to rehab my life and get my life back in order for all of the big mistakes that I have made. So walking out (before my final game last August) with my mother and my two daughters is something that I’ll never forget.”
On his brief thoughts about playing again last August after being released by the Yankees following his final game: “I flew the whole family home that Friday night and I thought about it a little that weekend. I was fortunate enough to have a few offers and I called them back and just said, ‘No, thank you.’ … (He refused to name the interested teams, only saying there were a few.) I was surprised that, A, they got my number and, B, there was interest. I hit .200 (last season).
A-Rod keeps a one bat in his home office: “Every once in awhile when I need to think, I just grab that bat.”
A-Rod on mentoring Yankees players: “I’m in a unique position from the things that I’ve done in this game good and bad, and I’ve learned my best lessons from some of my mistakes, and they were big ones. … I think my value for these kids is going to be taking them out to dinner and having a three-hour dinner, and in the first hour and a half recognizing that they’ll probably be pretty nervous and pretty tight. But by the second half of that dinner they’ll start asking real substantial questions.”
A-Rod the manager someday? “No! I’m trying to get my life back in order. I’m trying to manage my daughters, and most of the time they’re managing me. So no.”
On whether his baseball skills are gone: “That’s a subjective question. I think after serving the suspension (in 2014), I just put so much effort into that ’15. I think I emptied the tank.”
A-Rod’s spring goals: “One of the things I’m here for is to surround myself with the young players and we want our young players to be in tremendous physical and mental condition. We want them to have a great work ethic. And third, we want them to be maniacal about their routines and be world masters of fundamentals, and at the end of the day if we have our players do those three or four things … This is really a battle of discipline, and if we can instill that in our young players before they get to the Bronx, we’ll be way ahead of the curve.”
A-Rod’s take on the 2017 Yankees: “The key numbers if I was evaluating what we want to do this year, I would say it’s 35 and 600. I’d love to see our young pitchers get 35 starts and some of our young hitters get 600 at-bats while understanding that it’s going to be painful to watch sometimes, understanding you’ll have guys hitting .180. But in the long run … this is a tremendous opportunity that this franchise has in front of us. We’ve got more talent in here since I was here in 2004, young talent. So if we’re patient and we give these guys instruction and we manage expectations, I think 35 and 600 would be an enormous win for us. And it will give us a real fair shot to appraise the real talent that we have.”
A-Rod is enjoying retirement: “I’m in a really good place. My family … I get to spend time with my mother. And I get to be part of the greatest organization in the world.”
Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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