Yankees Take Back Alex Rodriguez

Apparently, the fat lady has sung. Alex Rodriguez has negotiated his contract with the Yankees. Yes, that is the very same New York Yankees that said that once Alex Rodriguez opted out of his contract with the baseball club, they would not negotiate with the presumable 2007 AL MVP.

But oh, how the tables have turned? The Yankees indeed have taken up Alex Rodriguez and his wife on an offer to talk about him playing for the storied franchise.

So the Yankees come out of this looking bad, right?

Not exactly. In fact, not at all.

The humility-ridden culprits that arise out of all of this are Alex Rodriguez and his agent Scott Boras. I will get to why they look so bad in just a second.

As for why the Yankees do not look bad- despite going against their word not to be a part of A-Rod's free agency- well, the Yankees did not come to A-Rod. They did not pursue him after he opted out of the contract he formerly had with the team. A-Rod came to the Yankees, with his head down and tail between his legs. And to put a pretty bow around it, the Yankees did not allow A-Rod to bring his agent into the talks, thereby shutting out sports biggest agent from the biggest deal in sports history. So indeed, the Yankees did not participate in A-Rod's free agency, because in order to do that, a ball club must pursue the free agent, not the other way around.

So in actuality, the Yankees come out of this looking quite good. The best player in all of baseball is practically begging them to sign him. Now if the Yankees somehow make the mistake of allowing A-Rod to use whatever offer they give him as leverage on the free agent market, then the Yankees are indeed being played for fools. But assuming the Yankees are not dumb enough to allow that to happen (and I hope that is not too much of an assumption), then the Yankees will come out of this whole ordeal having signed the best player in baseball for less than he thought he was worth, for less than they offered him 3 weeks ago, and they would have done it all practically spitting in the face the world's super agent, Scott Boras.