Mike Celizic

There is a sense of sadness and relief at the news that Alex Rodriguez has chosen to take his enormous talent into the marketplace of muscle to get more money than the richest team in baseball is willing to give him.

The relief is at the knowledge that the constant soap opera of his tenure in New York is over. It’s just as well; the tabloid headline writers had already exhausted the stock of A-Rod puns — K-Rod, A-Fraud; E-Rod, and so on.

The sadness is at the spectacle of this young athlete who would seem to have everything setting off again on a quest for love and approval delivered in the only form he understands — great mountains of loot.

It’s impossible to say that the Yankees are better off without him, at least in a statistical sense. You can’t replace 50 home runs, 150 RBIs and 130 runs. If you could, Rodriguez wouldn’t be worth the more than $30 million a year that his agent, Scott Boras, says he is.

It’s also impossible to blame all of the team’s postseason failings on him.

It is true that the Yankees have not gotten to the World Series since he arrived in 2004, and it’s also true that he went three years between productive postseason at-bats. But the Yankees had failed to win the World Series in the three years before he got there, and this year, in an ironic twist, he was one of the only Yankees to hit in a losing effort in the ALDS to Cleveland.

The Yankees showed him money, according to published reports — $30 million a year for five more years of play beginning when his current contract was to expire after three more seasons. But, Boras is suggesting, A-Rod was concerned about the the direction that Steinbrenner, the New Generation, is taking with the team. He might even be unhappy that Hank and Hal Steinbrenner didn’t bring manager Joe Torre came back. Such are the suggestions of Boras.

All I can say about that is: consider the source. A-Rod can’t simply say, “I want more money, and I want out of from under the scrutiny of all those writers who fill their pens with acid.” He needed an excuse to opt out of his contract, and Hank and Hal gave it to him when they said the team was in a period of “transition.” I am positive he doesn’t care who manages the team as long as it’s someone who knows how to write “Rodriguez” in the four-hole on the lineup card. Remember, Torre is the guy who batted him eighth in the playoffs. I don’t think there was great affection between player and manager.

And let’s be serious about this. The Yankees may be rebuilding a bit, but seriously, guys, which franchise in baseball is more likely to remain competitive every year over the life of the next contact? You’ve got two teams that are going to be there every year with rare exceptions — the Red Sox and the Yankees.

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The Angels are in good shape with the relatively weak AL West, but that can change. And the Mets’ fortunes are never constant. Everybody else is a crap shoot.

A-Rod will talk about wanting to win, but he’s had plenty of chances to do that where he is. He said the same thing when he went to Texas and the same thing before he had to leave Seattle. And after all the talk, he’ll end up someplace with no more chance of winning — and maybe less of a chance — than he had in New York.

My guess is that the Angels will be first in line bidding for his services and that the Cubs will be next. I don’t know if there will be many more suitors, although the Dodgers and Giants are always possibilities.

I don’t think the Red Sox will go for him; they have a lot of young talent on a team that truly is a team. Theo Epstein and John Henry don’t like spending what A-Rod will want, they don’t like signing long-term deals with guys on the wrong side of 30, and they don’t want individuals who end up being bigger than the team.

The perfect place for him is Wrigley Field. It’s a great hitter’s park, a place where he can try to break every record in the books. It’s also the ultimate Field of Broken Dreams, the one place where he can go and lose and not take the blame. They lost without him and if they lose with him, it’s not his fault, it’s the billy goat’s. The Cubs are loveable losers. I’m not saying A-Rod is a loser, but I will say he really wants to be loved.

Rodriguez was abandoned by his father when he was very young and that fact still hangs over him. A psychologist could tell you how that relates to his need to be perfect in everything he does and his obsession with being the most richly-rewarded player in American team sports.