[Larisochka]

Depending on how you look at it, this was either comic opera of theater of the absurd.

The Yankees badly mishandled the Torre affair, but they seem to have skillfully played the A-Rod separation in the public arena. Bear in mind, when you're talking about this much money, there's usually a secret tunnel connecting the principals.

Boras took a chance and tested the free-agent market, not accepting the reality that, although the A-Rod contract was 7 years old, it was so grossly out of proportion to the baseball salary structure, that the league still hadn't caught up. He compounded the miscalculation by making the announcement during the World Series, insulting a team that was a potential bidder.

Cynical as I am, I think the story that Cashman missed the text message because he fell asleep while reading a bedtime story to his son was a brilliant fabrication, designed to add fuel to the Boras fire. On one hand you have a money-grubbing superagent interrupting the pinnacle of a childhood game; on the other, a guy 'being a dad.' In one stroke, the Yankees are transformed nationally into the good guys.

I'm sure A-Rod was dismayed that his image began rolling downhill, picking up momentum, but I doubt he initiated contact with the Yankees without the hand of Boras.

The link between A-Rod and the Yankees was Goldman Sachs. John Mallory, who was a neighbor of A-Rod and works in GS's private wealth management division, contacted GS executive Gerry Cardinale, who helped create the YES network (Yankees own controlling interest) and is a member of the YES board. Cardinale arranged the meeting between A-Rod and Yankee ownership.

I also heard that neither Mallory nor Cardinale received a fee for their 'services.' This seems to be consistent with the obsessively secretive GS, who didn't want to get dragged into the very public Yankee - A-Rod divorce-reconciliation.