All or nothing

Alex Rodriguez actually proved me wrong this inning, but 95 percent of the time, it's all or nothing with him. I think he irritates a lot of baseball fans (including a lot of Yankee fans) because when he's striking out 4 times in one game or hitting into double plays, it's hard to justify or wrap your head around the obscene amount of money he gets paid. When he's on fire, it can still be irritating to think about the fact that he's making more money than probably the entire populations of some nations, but at least he's winning games. I think he's the youngest player ever to reach 500 homeruns. He's well on pace to break the homerun record. But if he's not hitting homeruns, he's driving me nuts. When we're down and it's two outs, bottom of the ninth, he is not the man I want coming up to the plate (that would be Derek Jeter). Even if there's only one out, I'd rather see anyone but him. Because if he's not hitting home runs, he's getting out (I breathe a sigh of relief if he only strikes out, because it means at least he didn't get two outs with a double play)...

And then there are innings like the bottom of the 8th tonight when he actually does something normal and productive, which is always nice.