Dustin Pedroia was named the AL MVP, and that means an insecure over-analyzer like Alex Rodriguez, must look in the mirror and ask himself a tough question: Would Madonna like canoodling with me, or all American League MVP award winners?
After all, Dustin offers a team that can make the playoffs, scrappy good looks, and, since his teammate Kevin Youkilis finished third in the voting, more potential bang-for-her-MVP buck. Pedroia also won the gold glove at 2B, and any "material girl" can surely appreciate that. Alex won the award in 2007, but has none of those things to offer now. Who would you rather be on the cover of US Weekly with?
The Red Sox spark plug responded to winning the award saying, “I’m not the biggest guy in the world, I don’t have that many tools. If you look at me and I’m walking down the street, you wouldn’t think I’m a baseball player."
That quote must ring eerily familiar for Rodriguez, considering nowadays he walks down the street and people don't see a baseball player, but rather Madonna's boyfriend. Ba-da-bum.
How does being involved with an internationally recognized superstar brand-name like Madonna impact your sabermetric ratios? We may never know (Bill James might!). Maybe it's a stretch to blame any tempering of the Yankee slugger's numbers on a rumored tryst with a pop icon; maybe it's obvious that such an affair could be nothing other than a major distraction. Maybe the Red Sox and Pedroia will have to contend with the Madonna MVP slump, maybe not.
But if luck should smile upon the Yankees, and Madonna indeed has no effect on the statistics of baseball players she is photographed with, then fans may be in for a treat to open the new Yankee Stadium. That's because one real-life trend for A-Rod is to win MVP awards every other season, so far he's won the award in '03, '05, '07. He's due in 2009, and figures to be be extra motivated if Madge is spending a little more time in Boston than usual.
Of course, if Alex posts another monster MVP-caliber season, and the Yankees execute their offseason plan of buying every free agent available, he may come face-to-face with something Madonna could never provide: that elusive World Series title.
