After Reggie Jackson's disparaging comments about Alex Rodriguez and others last week, he was essentially benched by the Yankees and told to stay away from team events indefinitely, according to AL sources.Olney also mentions that Jackson apologized to Joe Girardi and other team officials, as well as A-Rod himself.
Jackson was not in Boston over the weekend, where the Yankees played the Red Sox.
Jackson, a special adviser for the Yankees, usually is around the team.
But at this time, there is enough anger at the Hall of Famer from within the organization that the team has decided that he should keep his distance until otherwise determined.
"A cooling off period, but not a death penalty," a source with knowledge of the team's thinking called it when speaking to ESPNNewYork.com's Andrew Marchand.
At some point, Jackson is expected to be back with the team, the source said.
To me, Reggie did nothing wrong and shouldn't have been forced to apologize or stay away from the team. After all, the quote in the article was pretty harmless:
"Al's a very good friend. But I think there are real questions about his numbers. As much as I like him, what he admitted about his usage does cloud some of his records."The Yankees are blowing this whole thing way out of proportion.
Would The Boss have reacted this way? I don't think so, and I'd bet he'd be pretty disappointed.
The only thing that matters here is that Alex Rodriguez brought this on himself when he decided to cheat the game, and he's not the victim here. If anyone is, it's Reggie.
... Well, and maybe some of those HOF'ers he ripped in the article, too.