For love or money Just like Wilt, A-Rod blessed, cursed by his talent
It was exactly 50 years ago this week that Wilt Chamberlain lost the NCAA championship, as North Carolina beat his Kansas team in triple overtime. It was hardly Wilt's fault. He was named tournament MVP, but it was then that he was christened a loser, a tag he would carry most of the rest of his career. Eventually, one of Wilt's coaches, the estimable Alex Hannum, said, "Nobody loves Goliath," a phrase Wilt would often woefully recite himself.
Indeed, Chamberlain is the only great athlete I've ever known who seemed to be so much happier once his playing days were over. So much was expected of him that even if he did finally win two NBA titles, he understood he could never be loved.
I never thought Wilt would remind me of anyone else.
But along came Alex Rodriguez.
I will not try to stretch comparisons. Wilt was a force of nature, Rodriguez merely an extraordinary talent, the best in his game, natural enough to play in the major leagues at the age of 18, which is virtually unheard of. But there seems in A-Rod -- or "A-Fraud," as his critics like to call him, painting a mustache on the Mona Lisa -- there seems almost an embarrassment that he could be that naturally gifted. Wilt was that way. When scoring points could not make people adore him, he sought to get the most assists -- and beyond that, ultimately, as we know, he boasted that he had had the most women.
Rodriguez was happy in Seattle, where he found in his manager, Lou Piniella, a surrogate father. He positively gushed on and on about Sweet Lou when I talked to him last month. He even remembered how Piniella had kissed him when he cried as a rookie after he struck out. However, Seattle was too far out of the mainstream, so A-Rod took a monster contract to become a mercenary for a losing team, Texas.
But the great amounts of money, like Wilt's great amounts of points or women, didn't buy him respect, only the same sort of charges of greed. It was fool's gold. So A-Rod came to New York, to the fabled Yankees, where he would be, at last, in the center of the baseball universe. There, he cheerfully gave up his shortstop position, played the unfamiliar third base magnificently, won the league's MVP trophy ... but still, still couldn't earn the fancy of the fans.
Isn't it funny? Of course, Rodriguez talks of only wanting to win a championship, but somehow it seems that what matters more for him is to win the hearts of the people who root for his team. Maybe when you know you're that good, good isn't good enough. There are even rumors that A-Rod really only wants to find comfort, go re-join Piniella, who is now managing the Cubs.
I always thought Chamberlain would have been better in an individual sport, where the complications of team didn't intrude upon his personal majesty. Maybe Rodriguez is miscast in the same way. Sometimes, I suppose, an athlete can be trapped by his own brilliance. Like an actress who is so beautiful nobody believes she can act in a role, A-Rod is so great nobody can believe he needs to be reassured on a team.
