Friday column: A-Rod to Aquinas to Aristotle

The wicked prowl on every side,/ and that which is worthless is highly prized by everyone. — Psalm 12, verse 8

The wicked get more than enough attention here, so today I want to focus on the second line quoted above. It leapt to mind Tuesday as I looked at the lead photo of The New Mexican, which showed a camera-toting young woman positively ecstatic to be in close proximity — less than a foot! — to Loomis Fall from the movie Jackass.

I don’t mean to be hard on the woman. I was 21 once, and at that age a brush with celebrity of any kind surely would have had me grinning ear to ear, too.

Furthermore, while infatuation with celebrity often decreases with the increase of experience and perspective, some things that are worthless continue to be highly prized by folks of any age.

Which brings me to Alex Rodriguez and, oddly enough, Thomas Aquinas.

In one of his writings, the 13th-century theologian deduced that “man’s ultimate happiness consists in contemplation of the truth.” Along the way, he philosophically discarded certain things that did not bring ultimate happiness; these included wealth, sensual pleasure — and honors.

“Only the good can be worthy of honor,” Aquinas wrote, “and yet it is possible even for the wicked to be honored. Therefore it is better to become worthy of honor, than to be honored.”

If you can believe Selena Roberts, author of A-Rod: The Many Faces of Alex Rodriguez, the Yankees third baseman worries about honor — other people’s opinions of him. Actually, you don’t have to believe Roberts; you can believe Joe Torre or any number of former teammates who’ve testified to A-Rod’s overwhelming desire to be liked and respected.

Unfortunately, for A-Rod, it’s the intensity of this very desire that seems to undermine his efforts to be well thought of, that leads to teammates seeing him as superficial and phony.

Torre, in The Yankee Years, wrote that he used to tell Rodriguez, “You do things on the field that draw attention to yourself that are unnecessary, and you want people to know how good you are, how smart a ballplayer you are. And we already know that. Just play. Stop saying, ‘Look at me.’ ”

That, apparently, is one thing he can’t do, either on field or off — witness his very public fling with Madonna.

As I don’t mean to be hard on the woman thrilled to be in the presence of Loomis Fall, so I don’t mean to be too hard on A-Rod. He might crave the high opinion of others more than many, but few — if any — of us are immune to that desire.

So perhaps it’s well to end with a reminder, a restatement of Aquinas’ final point by the man who was his philosopher master.

“Dignity does not consist in possessing honors,” Aristotle said, “but in deserving them.”

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com

Do you trust this man?

I always liked Joe Torre. He seemed like a gentleman; now he seems like just another grasper.

Worried that history will focus on George Steinbrenner’s spending habits, he wants to make sure people to give him credit for the four World Series titles the Yankees won from 1996 to 2000.

Joe, we get it; we always did. We knew your situation — standing between the old man and your players — was a tough one, and that you handled it with intelligence, class and as much dignity as was possible. You didn’t need to write a book to tell us.

You certainly didn’t need to write a book in which you spilled clubhouse secrets, in which you said Alex Rodriguez was called “A-Fraud,” in which you ripped Carl Pavano, Kevin Brown, David Wells, even Carlos Beltrán — who didn’t even play for you.

And your disingenuousness now that the book is out, insisting you were just a source for Tom Verducci, whose name is also on the book jacket, isn’t helping your fading image.

I bet your young Dodger players — you know, one of those to whom you preached that what happens in the clubhouse should stay in the clubhouse — view you a lot differently today than a couple of weeks ago. I know I do.

Think about it, Hank

So.

Baby Boss, aka Hank Steinbrenner, who essentially canned Joe Torre as Yankees manager, claims he’s happy his former skipper is on the verge of winning the NL West with the L.A. Dodgers. But he’s not so happy he can’t take a shot at Torre’s new team.

Said Steinbrenner, whose team is not playoff bound — for the first time in 14 years: “… you have to compare the divisions and the competition. What if the Yankees finish the season with more wins than the Dodgers, but the Dodgers make the playoffs? Does that make the Dodgers a better team? No."

Good, Hank. Now we have a question: Thanks to you, Torre left one team — the Yankees — after last season and joined another: the Dodgers. Which team got better this year — and which team got worse?

Getting what they deserve

An Associated Press account of Manny Ramirez’s third game as a Dodger included the following information: “Ramirez ran out a grounder behind third base at full speed.”

The AP reporter deemed it worthy of note that Ramirez had hustled on a play — something that Derek Jeter, for one, has done on every grounder or flyball he’s ever hit in his career.

For this modicum of caring, Ramirez was cheered by the Los Angeles crowd, which might seem a bit excessive. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
For that matter, so is truth.

In the last weeks of Ramirez’s tenure in Boston, anyone with eyes could see that Manny — wanting out of a contract that paid him a paltry $20 million a year — had turned Red Sox saboteur, not running out ground balls, not bothering to swing in a key at-bat against the Yankees, pulling himself out of the lineup with phantom injuries.

Not only had his manager and longtime protector, Terry Francona, turned against him, so had his fellow players.

“When you quit on your team, that’s the worst thing you can do,” one Red Sox player said. “He had to go after that.” Another called Ramirez’s actions “a disgrace.”

Yet his new manager, smilin’ Joe Torre, said, “Over the years I have never heard anything negative about him from his teammates. That’s usually a particularly good sign.”

On the other hand, slapping a teammate in the dugout — as Ramirez did recently to Kevin Youklis — or in a fit of pique knocking over a 64-year-old traveling secretary — as he did to Jack McCormick — isn’t a particularly good sign.

But as Ramirez is hitting .467 with five home runs in 12 games, everyone bleeding Dodger blue is happy to drink the Kool-Aid.

Turn to the West, cup your hears and you can probably hear the Dodger Stadium chant: Manny is a team player. Manny plays hard. Manny is misunderstood.

On his way out of Boston, Ramirez said the Red Sox didn’t deserve him. He was dead wrong. The Red Sox covered and made excuses for their petulant hitting star for years, and when he turned on them, they deserved him, all right.

And when it turns ugly in L.A., his new enablers, the Dodgers, will have richly deserved him as well.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.