The deal Alex Rodriguez couldn’t turn down

Alex Rodriguez is a baseball player first, professionally speaking, but back there somewhere a businessman. Second or third, perhaps, to baseball, which was why he was sitting in on MBA classes at the University of Miami in his year away, why he struck up friendships with Warren Buffett and others like him, and why he took that peach of a deal from the New York Yankees on Sunday.

He gets $27 million, no strings attached. He is a free agent, as of Saturday morning. He was not playing today for the Yankees anyway. There was no promise he would play for them tomorrow, and in fact seemed likely he would not. The temporary discomfort in being unconditionally released as a giant of the game and while four home runs from 700, that too dissolves in a new gig as an adviser and mentor to the next generation of Yankees.

He is 41 years old. He is a .204 hitter. There was nowhere for him among the 25 in an organization owned by Hal Steinbrenner, led by Brian Cashman, managed by Joe Girardi. If the club’s direction weren’t obvious to him before, these weeks on the bench provided time for contemplation, for clarity.

Take the deal.

Proposed mid-week in conversations with Steinbrenner, the offer was another six games as a Yankee, a few more at-bats, an unconditional release, a graceful exit, the remainder of his contract, and a soft job in Tampa.

Of course it was heartbreaking. We all remember ourselves at 18, or try. That guy hadn’t made a mistake that couldn’t be excused. That couldn’t be covered in apologies, promises to be better. That guy was strong and beautiful and impenetrable. That guy had dreams so big they were almost embarrassing to share, and a view of a life that would be as honorable as it would be fulfilling, that would be linear in its path.

Rodriguez’s chin trembled. He removed his cap and mushed at his eyes with the palms of his hands.

Alex Rodriguez’s final game with the Yankees will be on Friday. (AP)

“At 18,” he said, “I just wanted to make the team.”

That guy would look at this guy and say, “Move along, old man, my turn.” For that’s how this works, how the game is played, no matter how the next 23 years went. Mostly it ends in a parking lot to the sound of a slammed truck and then the game going on without a tear. Sometimes it ends on a stage, a big one in upstate New York, a small one in the Bronx, and it always looks the same. Mike Piazza cried. Ken Griffey Jr. cried. Mark Teixeira cried. Alex Rodriguez tried not to, and did too. Hell, it was all Girardi could do to not cry, and he was just standing around watching.

“This is a tough day,” Rodriguez said. “I love the game and I love this team. And today I’m saying goodbye to both.

“We all want to keep playing forever. But it doesn’t work that way. Saying goodbye may be the hardest part of the job.”

He thanked his mother and his daughters.

“You’ve been through so much with me,” he said, his voice thin.

He thanked the fans.

“For letting me play the game that I love,” he said.

He thanked the Yankees for sticking with him, as if they had a choice, and for keeping him around, when they did.

“For a guy like me,” he said, “who’s been to hell and back and has made every mistake in the book.”

Bright side, the book was a bestseller.

Maybe this is it for A-Rod, too. Those 696 home runs, those 3,114 hits, all those RBIs, plus whatever comes of the week ahead. Maybe he’ll go home to Miami on Saturday morning, coach his daughter Natasha’s basketball team (as he suggested Sunday), re-enroll at The U, get started shaping young hearts and minds and swing planes in Tampa in the spring. Or maybe he’ll get in the cage, get in the gym, get on the track, and take a shot at 700, or 714, and whatever else is important to him.

That’s the other part of this deal, you see. One phone call changes everything.

“Sure, of course I think I can play baseball,” he said, dry-eyed. “You always think you have one more hit in you. … That wasn’t in the cards. That was the Yankees’ decision. And I’m at peace with it.”

Pressed on the issue, he smiled and added, “I have not thought past the pinstripes. My horizon is Friday.”

Still, Saturday is coming. And so is that morning when A-Rod awakens to fresh legs and a back that feels pretty good, to the memory of a fastball that screams from the barrel of his bat, to a bunch of guys laughing behind the cage on a summer afternoon in, say, Tampa.

“He has the right to change his mind, too,” Cashman observed.

“He could get home and say, ‘You know what, I wanna keep going,’ ” Girardi offered.

They know the athlete. They know the man. So, yeah, he’s a ballplayer. He’s a businessman. Those things collide. Asked to describe himself, A-Rod paused before answering.

“I do want to be remembered as someone who was really in love with the game of baseball,” he said. “As someone who tripped and fell a lot. But somebody who kept getting up.”

So, yeah, take the deal.