By Tom Verducci

With the trade Texas owner Tom Hicks made the figurative admission that his business plan to build a winning team around Rodriguez was a colossal failure. A-Rod missed only one game over three years in Texas while hitting .305 with 156 home runs and 395 RBIs, but other investments, such as $65 million over five years for pitcher Chan Ho Park, bombed, and Hicks could not afford to continue pumping money into the payroll. Talk about a costly divorce: By 2025, when the last of his deferred payments is due, Hicks will have paid Rodriguez $140 million for three years of service.

After the Boston talks died, Hicks had given Rodriguez a let's-make-up bouquet: On Jan. 25 he named A-Rod captain and promised a long-term relationship. It lasted three weeks. On Feb. 8 Scott Boras, Rodriguez's agent, called Yankees general manager Brian Cashman about another client, free-agent first baseman Travis Lee. Cashman mentioned how much trouble he was having trying to replace Boone. He had failed to get Adrian Beltre from the Los Angeles Dodgers, for instance. Then it hit Boras: Why not Rodriguez? A Mets fan growing up, Rodriguez had always wanted to play in New York. Boras made a joke about it to Cashman to plant the seed of an idea, then immediately called Rodriguez.

"You'd have to decide what the [shortstop] position means to you," Boras told him, "and understand what you'd be giving up for a chance to win. Think about it."

Rodriguez called Boras back the next day and said, "Let's do it."

Said Boras on Sunday, "I knew for the last three years how hard it's been on Alex to be on a losing team and to have to hear that it's because of his contract. I also knew the business plan the Rangers were talking was not what was presented to him three years ago. The situation was possibly going to get worse."

On Feb. 10 the Rangers conducted an internal conference call with Rodriguez, Boras, Hicks, G.M. John Hart and manager Buck Showalter regarding the direction of the club. Boras just happened to mention that Rodriguez might reconsider a trade to the Yankees. Hicks scoffed at the idea. "Alex isn't going to play third base," the owner said. "He's always said that."

"Alex," Boras said, "what do you think about third base?"

"I wouldn't rule it out," Rodriguez said.

Silence fell over the line. Said Boras on Sunday, "Frankly, Tom Hicks was stunned."

The next day Hart and Cashman were negotiating the framework of the deal. By Sunday, Rodriguez had his Yankees uniform number picked out: 13, his high school football number. His usual baseball number, 3, was retired by the Yankees in homage to another young slugger who slipped through Boston's fingers to New York: Babe Ruth.

"Once Scott brought it to my attention, it made perfect sense," Rodriguez says about moving to third base to be a Yankee. "I began to think about the pinstripes. I felt the allure of the tradition and the opportunity to win and asked myself, Why not do it?

"You know the best part? Getting there while I'm still young and knowing I have seven years to play with Derek and set my legacy as far as being a part of Yankees history. Getting there at 37 and playing two years wouldn't be the same."

His Yankees history, born of misfortune, already has begun.

Issue date: February 23, 2004