New A-Rod?

Easily the most nauseating part of the Yankees' return to playoff dominance has been the newly inspired play of Alex Rodriguez.

For years the poster boy of everything hateable about the Yankees and a symbol of their postseason ineptitude, A-Rod has paced the Yankees' offense with 5 home runs through the first 7 games of the 2009 playoffs.

He's still hateable, but that unclutch tag grows more and more anachronistic each day.

I want to think that even Yankee fans appreciate that this was a lot more fun when A-Rod was his old, bizarre self.

You know, the guy who talked about his erstwhile sleepovers with Derek Jeter. The guy who went sexy sunbathing in Central Park. The guy who inspired a really, really long piece on ESPN.com entitled "Why Do We Hate This Guy?".

And of course, the guy who slammed Madonna, slapped Bronson Arroyo, and slobbered over himself in a widely circulated magazine.

I don't care what the numbers say, somewhere beneath A-Rod's new, Kate Hudson-loving exterior lurks that same tortured soul.

The same needy, clueless, stripper loving (tranny-banging? That was the word out of Rudy Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign staff...) big-moment shrinking ne'erdowell that everyone just seemed to instinctively despise? It's all in there somewhere just beneath the surface. We just need to find a way to draw it out.

This is serious, people. The Curse could depend on it.

- A.F.O.M.G.