Cashman Discusses A-Rod's Press Conference

From Larry Fine:

"I like the fact more when he says he was stupid, not young and naive," Cashman told a group of reporters when asked to assess Rodriguez's remarks.

"It was a bad decision that may cost him on so many levels," said Cashman.

"He's dealing with it, he's forced to deal with it. He's suffering, the game is suffering, the Yankees are suffering."

"The one thing he could have said was the fact he chose to do this to make himself better ... at what he does on the baseball field," Cashman said. "That's the truth.

"I don't think Alex is very good at communicating ... whether it's about talking about your game and the impact you had on it after hitting a home run or if he had a tough game at the park, let the team down.

"Anybody that's been in that clubhouse when he's trying to talk about success or failure on the baseball diamond knows that is something he is not very good at."

"That's one step in a process of many steps," he said. "The first spring training road game, how do the fans react?

"Then you go on the road in the season. The first city, the first story. It's going to be a big story the first time into any city. This story is not dying."

"We have nine years of Alex remaining and we want it to be nine terrific years. He is a huge investment.

"This is an asset that's currently in crisis and we will do everything we can to protect this asset and move forward with this asset.

"If this is Humpty Dumpty we have to put him back together again."

Is it just me or does he not seem too happy?