Updates on A-Rod's Comments and Cyst

Alex Rodriguez spoke with reporters yesterday after a tune-up game with Team Dominican Republic, discussing his admiration of Mets shortstop Jose Reyes.

Initially the comments were taken as a slight against Derek Jeter, but now some people, like Chris Harihar of iYankees, have started to wonder if it really was a shot at the Yankees leadoff hitter Johnny Damon.

Here is part of the quote from A-Rod: “I wish he was leading off on our team.”

I can see how that might be a swipe at Damon, but Damon wasn’t one of them.

“Obviously, we know how talented Jose Reyes is,” Damon told The Post. “I know Alex loves me as a teammate and leading off. Jose Reyes still has 10 to 15 years in the tank; I have five at the most.”

In reality A-Rod didn’t take a swipe at anybody, he just doesn’t think before he talks. In the couple of years he has been in New York haven’t we come to expect that just as much as he’s going to be great all season long before disappearing in October?

Meanwhile, there was some more serious A-Rod news yesterday that for some reason came with perfect timing, he has a cyst on his hip. Apparently this is something he had to deal with last season.

“Alex expressed a little stiffness. There was really no pain,” Joe Girardi said on Wednesday. “We just thought it was best because he had some minor issues last year with it. We’ll have a better idea after today with what the course of plan is.”

The Yankees have let him go on playing because, according to Girardi, it hasn’t affected his play at all.

“Whenever you have something going on, you’re concerned,” Girardi said. “The fact he didn’t have a lot of pain is a little bit more comforting. He’s been able to play, and play at a high level. It hasn’t kept him from doing anything. It hasn’t kept him from driving the baseball. That’s the good thing.”

The Yankees, who like to discourage their players from participating in the WBC will likely use this as an excuse to keep him from playing. They’re just going to need some help from the doctors to come up with that excuse.

“We have to err on the side of caution for the Yankees,” Girardi said. “But we’ll let the hip specialist determine if he’s ready to play Saturday. We’ll take his suggestions.”

Nowadays when people talk mysterious ailments involving A-Rod it is always going to come back to steroids and it has started already. Ken Davidoff of Newsday made the connection to a similar issue with Roger Clemens a few years back.

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“Before word broke last night about the cyst in A-Rod’s hip, the most famous cyst in recent baseball history belonged to Roger Clemens. As was disclosed in the Feb. 13, 2008 Congressional hearing that involved Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner developed an abscess (an infected cyst, according to medical Web sites) on his buttocks during his 1998 season with the Blue Jays.

Brian McNamee, the former Yankees employee who testified he injected Clemens with illegal, performance-enhancing drugs, pointed to that ailment as evidence of his accusations. A doctor commissioned by Congressional Democrats examined Clemens’ medical report from 1998 and agreed that McNamee probably was telling the truth.”

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Apparently it is enough evidence for Davidoff and while I’m certainly not a doctor, it is hard for me to believe that this is not a side effect of repeatedly sticking a needle in your ass for years.

I’ve already chimed in with my thoughts that this seems like more of a Jason Giambi like tumor, hopefully this isn’t a sign of the long string of injuries Giambi suffered as a result of his steroid use.