Teams of Mighty Caseys usually strike out

                    

	A-Rod could only watch Johnny Damon's scrappy Red Sox have all the fun in 2004. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
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Here's one to chew on: What would have happened if the Red Sox had succeeded in  acquiring Alex Rodriguez before the 2004 season?

Sub in A-Rod's .286, 36 home runs, 106 RBIs and presumably golden glove work at shortstop for the .256, 9 HR and 60 RBIs produced by Orlando Cabrera and Pokey Reese, then ask yourself if Boston still would have reached, let alone won, the World Series that year.

Numbers aside, the more crucial question is whether A-Rod would have fit in with the scruffy, dirt-eating, pine-tar-smeared "Idiot" culture that enabled the Red Sox to weather intense pressure and pull off an unprecedented comeback against their most bitter rivals. 

Finally, for the sake of argument, let's assume the Yankees found a competent third baseman and the 2004 ALCS played out the way it did with A-Rod in a Boston uniform. Would he have come through as the less-heralded Bill Mueller did by driving in Dave Roberts with the tying run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4 with the crushing weight of the Curse, an 0-3 deficit and Mariano Rivera bearing down on him? A-Rod lined out to short with the go-ahead run on second and one out in the top of the 11th -- his first clutch at-bat for the Yankees after their ship began to take on foaming brine in that game. The rest, as they say, is history -- 1-for-12 for the rest of the series history.

My gut feeling is no on all counts, a sentiment echoed by the devout Red Sox partisans I've spoken to. New York may be the citadel of colossal expectation and intense pressure, but Boston is no bed of begonias, either. The plan was get the image-consciious A-Rod from Texas for the oblivious Manny Ramirez. The burdens he would bring with him  -- his contract and billing as a surefire Hall of Famer and the game's best all-around player -- would have made him an inviting target for Beantown boo-birds bitter after 86 years of futility and that galling Game 7 defeat in the 2003 ALCS, as well as the media, not to mention a distraction and chemistry-queering presence in the clubhouse. Can you see prim, gleaming A-Rod with a mug full of scruff and some cornrows or dreds? Or in Jason Varitek's gritty, bristle-headed contingent?

The bottom line is that it takes an ironclad mentality to succeed in places like Boston and New York when the heat is on, and quite often that ability is found in lesser lights like Mark Bellhorn (game-winning three-run homer in Game 6 of that ALCS), whose presence doesn't often stir the coals of avid partisans (Bellhorn hit .192 for the series). Yankee fans surely recall cocky Jim Leyritz, who hit .264 with 7 home runs during the 1996 regular season, but delivered a World Series-turning blow against the Braves.

Of course, it's ridiculous to blame the Yankees' last three postseason flops on A-Rod. It's a team sport, and these have been team efforts. Yet there's no doubt he could have turned the team's fortunes toward the better by elevating his play. I cite A-Rod because he's become such a lightning rod and his numbers alone are so often taken as an indicator of success. His presence on the Yankees gives lie to the adages that you can't have enough of a good thing, or can never be too rich or too thin (just check out their pitching staff the past three years).

My pet theory is that All-Star-laden teams don't sweat enough to be motivated by the fear of failure or even righteous anger when they find themselves on the edge of disaster. The overabundance of talent makes it too easy for players to assume that someone will come through and pick them up. There's not  enough incentive to prove yourself worthy, as the Tigers are intent on doing only one year removed from a 91-loss season.

Watching the Yankees go down in flames in Detroit, I thought I'd seen more life on the ice at the Fulton Fish Market. It seemed that when Hideki Matsui and Gary Sheffield came back from the DL, the fire and resolve that rookie Melky Cabrera and the other fill-ins gave the team during the long summer went out. A-Rod, meanwhile, looked like he was wound tighter than the proverbial funeral drum.