Mike Celizic

You know that the New York Yankees and the manager, Joe Torre, knew exactly what they were doing when they talked to Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated about their aloof and too-perfect teammate, Alex Rodriguez. They knew the article would land explosively on the newsstands and the Internet on the eve of the playoffs and would stand as both an indictment and a challenge to their superstar third baseman.

It’s not a nasty article, but an exceptionally balanced and fair one, to which A-Rod willingly contributed. But the message can’t be mistaken: the Yankees want the most talented man in the game to play up to his own opinion of himself. They also wouldn’t object terribly if he could somehow transform himself from Mr. Perfect, whose every word and action seemed to be scripted, into an actual human being and, more to the point, a passionate player.

Don’t think that the article will disrupt the team, not when all the players knew it was coming and talked on the record to Verducci. They wanted A-Rod to know what’s expected of him and of every Yankee — to win the World Series. They couldn’t have been more clear in telling him that they don’t care squat about how perfect he looks or what his numbers are. Individual honors don’t matter. Winning does.

What remains to be seen is if the article disrupts its subject. All most people have ever asked of A-Rod is to stop trying to be perfect and start getting angry. Stop trying to please everyone and just hit the ding-danged ball.

“Alex doesn't know who he is," the article quotes Jason Giambi as saying last month. "We're going to find out who he is in the next couple of months."

There is no indication that Giambi was being mean. He’s been through the Bronx boo mill himself and survived a lot of bad publicity last year over his involvement with steroids and BALCO. But his teammates love his passion and his grit and his desire to win. So do the team’s fans.

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So when Giambi essentially calls out A-Rod, it means something. According to the article, when A-Rod was going through a horrible June slump, Giambi told Torre to “stop coddling” the superstar. Torre responded by calling the third baseman into his office and telling him he had to start producing.

A-Rod spends too much time in the piece talking about his stats and saying that despite the slump he’s recently broken out of, he’s still having what would be a career year for most players — .286, 34 homers, 116 RBI as of Wednesday afternoon.

That’s exactly the point his teammates and manager were making — they don’t care about his bleeping stats.

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None of his teammates actually trashed him, but they didn’t come running to his defense, especially Derek Jeter, the captain and face of the team, who hasn’t had much to say to A-Rod since he dismissed Jeter as a two-hole hitter a few years ago.

And when A-Rod was asked who gives him support in the clubhouse, he could come up with just two names — Mariano Rivera, the peerless closer, and Rob Thomson, the batting-practice pitcher.

The batting-practice pitcher? I guess you take friends where you can find them.

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