A-Rod is only the latest to fall apart in the Big Apple 

                    

	An ace in Texas and Detroit, Kenny Rogers bombed with both the Yankees and the Mets. Doug Pensinger/Getty Images
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Yogi Berra sagely noted the impossibility of thinking and hitting simultaneously. Berra, of course, spent his career in New York, where the same principle applies to fielding and throwing.

Baseball is a largely reflexive, instinctive game, where even a fleeting thought at the wrong moment can short-circuit the most finely tuned wiring. New York's roiling mix of big money, bigger expectations, intense hype and media scrutiny, not to mention fans who devour their own at the drop of a pop fly, makes the Big Apple a perfect storm -- the ultimate high-pressure system. Clouds of doubt and fear can blow into the most supremely talented player's skull awful quick, then stall out in a media- and fan-fueled vortex of negative energy that creates a 1-for-17 streak laced with 12 strikeouts or an unshakeable case of throwing yips.

Only the fiery, steely or eerily calm will excel with the Yankees or the Mets, and Alex Rodriguez is merely the latest member of an all-scarred team that has melted down in the glare, turning into a spectacle of struggle and strife. Some recovered to thrive another day -- often in another, more sedate location -- and others were completely out of the game in fairly short order.

Herewith, a little roster. Please pardon the fantasy-league liberties taken at some positions.

Pitchers

Steve Trout: A sensitive southpaw (nickname: Rainbow) acquired from the Cubs with a 6-3 record and 3.00 ERA in July 1987 -- and presented to Yankees manager Lou Piniella with the owner's pronouncement, "I just won you the pennant." Trout went into an immediate shell and was shelled in nine calamitous starts in which he coughed up 51 hits and 37 walks in 46 innings while compiling an unsightly 0-4, 6.60 ERA ledger. The Yankees finished fourth and Trout was dispatched to Seattle after the season. He was out of the majors by June 1989.

Ed Whitson: A high-strung Tennessee farm boy who went from nondescript journeyman to 14-game winner with laid-back San Diego's 1984 National League champs. Whitson's life became a nightmare after he chose the Bronx as a free agent in December '84. The right-hander had never dealt with the beet-faced likes of Billy Martin, who was unraveling during his fourth tour as Yankees manager. The two came to blows in a savage fight at Baltimore's Cross Keys Inn in September '85, and by the following season the Yankee Stadium boo birds were on Whitson so viciously that manager Lou Piniella tried to use him exclusively on the road. After compiling a 5-2 mark and a 7.54 ERA in 14 games, Whitson was dealt back to San Diego in July. He won 16 games for the Padres three years later.

Kenny Rogers: The lefty arrived in the Bronx from Texas before the '96 season, accompanied by questions about his ability to handle big-city pressure. Though Rogers pitched reasonably well during the regular season (12-6, 4.68), the choker everyone feared surfaced in the postseason, where he failed to go longer than three innings in any of his three starts while being pelted to the tune of a 14.48 ERA. Fortunately for the Yankees, they survived to win the World Series, but the Mets weren't so lucky. In 1999, Rogers walked in the pennant-winning run in the 11th inning of Game 6 vs. Atlanta.

Hideki Irabu: The "Nolan Ryan of Japan" became Steinbrenner's "Fat Pus-sy Toad" in the space of three up-and-down seasons (1997-99), during which he compiled a 29-20, 4.80 mark while pulling in a $12.8 million paycheck. The stout Irabu got ink for his temper tantrums and a run-in with Japanese photographers in 1998 and earned the toad remark for failing to cover first base during an exhibition game the following season. He was finally sent to Montreal in 2000 for Jake Westbrook, Ted Lilly and Clay Parker.

Armando Benitez: He brought his notorious lack of clutchness to the Mets from Baltimore in 1999 and never lived it down during five tumultuous seasons in Flushing that included stand-out failures in the '99 NLCS, 2000 NLDS and 2000 World Series against the Mets' crosstown rivals. Strangely, the Yankees acquired him in 2003 as Mariano Rivera's set-up man, a move that lasted all of nine games before Benitez was traded to Seattle.