A-Rod proves he belongs in pinstripes

NEW YORK – This, more than anything else, is what the man in the mirror most desperately wanted to see, a reflection other than just his own.

Alex Rodriguez(notes) is no longer the loneliest man in pinstripes. It all changed Sunday night, in that moment when Mariano Rivera(notes) struck out Gary Matthews Jr.(notes), and A-Rod thrust his arms overhead and ran toward the middle of the field on a parallel course with Derek Jeter(notes). There they were met behind the mound by Mark Teixeira(notes), the Yankee newcomer who had already done more than anyone to make A-Rod feel like he was finally home. Teixeira wrapped his arms around both Jeter and A-Rod in a spinning roundelay of joy.

The player who had done so much to set himself as a man apart – with the biggest contract and the tawdriest headlines and the most famous girlfriends and then, this spring, the most spectacular fall from grace – had finally found himself in the vortex of a group to which he'd been denied membership for so long.

Alex Rodriguez has played in the big leagues since he was 18 years old. Except for Ken Griffey Jr.(notes), in whose orbit he once flew in Seattle, no active player had appeared in more games without going to a World Series than A-Rod. That ended Sunday night, when the New York Yankees beat the Los Angeles Angels, 5-2, to win the American League Championship Series, 4 games to 2, setting up a date with the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday night in Yankee Stadium.

The implausibility of it all, that Rodriguez would be going to the Series in what began as the season of his greatest discontent, one in which his reputation was smeared by the humiliating brush of steroid use and his body crippled by a hip injury that left him scared and uncertain, was not lost on the 34-year-old third baseman.

"That's the most irony,'' he said, "but with no expectations, trusting my teammates, taking walks, doing the little things, you end up doing big things. That's the lesson for me.''

And so he knocked off Rivera's cap in their mad pas de deux, nearly disappeared inside CC Sabathia's(notes) bear hug, locked arms with Jorge Posada(notes) and Jeter, then ultimately broke off for another long embrace with Jeter, a one-time best friend with whom he'd spent his first five seasons in New York sharing an uneasy truce, one that left both men diminished. Jeter, by the disappearance of the Yankee hegemony that had ruled in the earlier years of his career, Rodriguez by a barren harvest of Octobers that mocked his unquestioned skills.

No more.

"After going through surgery and going through all those tough times, he's proved it," Posada said. "He doesn't have to prove anything [anymore]. He's the best player in baseball."

Rodriguez was not named the most valuable player of this ALCS; the hardware went instead to Sabathia, who won two games, including a virtuoso effort on three days' rest in Game 4. But Rodriguez comes into this World Series as the most feared man in these playoffs, one who was accorded an ultimate sign of respect when Angels manager Mike Scioscia had him walked with two outs and nobody on base in the ninth inning of Game 5.

Rodriguez has hit safely in all nine of the Yankees' playoff games this season, 11 in a row dating back to 2007. He has hit five home runs, three of which tied games in the seventh inning or later, something no other player has done, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. He drove in at least a run in the team's first seven October games, then was credited with another RBI when he drew a bases-loaded walk Sunday night.

He reached base on all five of his plate appearances in Game 6, on two singles and three walks, and finished the ALCS batting a team-best .429. The singularity of his achievements came with the realization of how much better he was, subsumed into a group.

"I was scared,'' he said about his hip surgery. "I was afraid I wouldn't be able to contribute. I had a lot of limitations. The whole year was trusting my teammates and being one of the guys.

"All I cared about all year was winning games.''

Yankee manager Joe Girardi said it all began that first night in May when Rodriguez returned from his long rehab and hit the first pitch he saw into the seats in Baltimore. "A man on a mission,'' Girardi said. "He's been tremendous for us.''

Yankee owner Hal Steinbrenner, whose first official season as Yankee owner began with Rodriguez's confessional under a tent in Tampa, was asked if he'd imagined this scene back in February.

"Yes,'' he said, "because he's just an unbelievable guy.''

The unintended irony of that description is hard to miss, considering Rodriguez was less than truthful when first confronted with details of his steroid use. But he weathered that controversy, worked his way back from his hip surgery, and then, after missing the first month and a half of the season, rejoined a team that was much different than the one that had missed the playoffs the year before.

"I knew that with the guys we brought in this year, they were special talents and special people,'' Rodriguez said, "and all of them did a phenomenal job of playing so well in New York the first year. That's something a lot of people can't do, including myself.''

Such an admission would not have been possible for the A-Rod who obsessed about falling short of everyone else's expectations. But this year, he said, he felt like he was playing with house money. "I have nothing to lose,'' he said.

Freed from the exorbitant expectations he placed on himself, Rodriguez on Sunday night was rewarded with the hour of his greatest triumph.

"He played great,'' said Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, who has counseled Rodriguez often. "We've been looking for that since '04, and we finally got to see it.''

Jackson, of course, is not unacquainted with controversy.

"It drove me,'' he said, "and I think Al has handled it well. He got his focus on the game and got his mind right and game right.

"When his game is right, buddy, he's awfully, awfully good.''

Good enough to be placed among what the Yankee hagiographers refer to as the "true" Yankees?

"He's got to win a World Series,'' Jackson said. "There's more time to go. But the guy's a great player, dude. If he catches on, he's going to be very tough.''

If that happens, Alex Rodriguez will not have to kiss the mirror. The mirror, the one held up to so many Yankee greats in the past, will kiss him back.