The New York Yankees are not going to be able to void his contract, and he’s not going to retire. The Yankees made their bed when they signed A-Rod to his 10-year, $275 million deal, and now they must sleep in it.

And Rodriguez, who could be out until July after having surgery on his hip this off-season, isn’t going to step away from the game. Those thinking A-Rod has played his last game as a Yankee are kidding themselves.

So, just stop it already. Just stop it.

People want a Mike Schmidt moment, and they’re not going to get it.

Schmidt’s tearful goodbye to the game of baseball early in the 1989 season was highly unusual, both in its location and rapidity.

No one was expecting it. It came out of the blue. And the emotion surrounding the announcement, by a guy often criticized as being way too “Joe Cool,” caught everyone off guard.

It was one of those moments where, if you were a conscious sports fan at the time, you knew where you were when you saw it.

Schmidt and A-Rod are linked by this moment. People want to see a similar event, right now, from Rodriguez.

Here’s the only problem with that. A-Rod isn’t washed up. Schmidt was.

Schmidt has talked about why he decided to retire when he did.

Mired in a terrible slump to start the 1989 season, Schmidt, then 39 years old, had already been considering stepping away from the game. In his final one, an 8-5 loss to the Giants in San Francisco, he received his final push.

With the game tied 3-3 in the bottom of the fourth, Schmidt committed an error, letting a ground ball go right through his legs, an error that loaded the bases. The next batter, Will Clark, hit a grand slam.

That, in Schmidt’s mind, all but sealed the deal.

In a telephone interview with the Philadelphia Daily News back in 2009, Schmidt recalled his thought process…

“After the game, I walked into the clubhouse and it was like I was in a fog,” he said. “I showered real fast, paid the clubhouse guy and went out and sat on the bus all by myself for 30 or 40 minutes to contemplate my next move.”

“And that was it. I just cleaned out my locker and waited to see if I would get any phone calls,” he said.

The next part of Schmidt’s thinking, though, is what separates him from ballplayers today, who insist on taking “retirement tours,” in an effort to acquire as much public adulation as possible before stepping away.

“I think the important thing at the time of my decision is that the team – and you always want to put the team first – was not a contender. Everybody understood it was a rebuilding process. We weren’t going to win the division. Whether I was there or not, we were pretty much going to finish in the same place. Maybe it would be easier to rebuild without having to think about me. I was not going to be a big part of their future. Once I removed myself, the rebuilding process started working pretty quickly.”

There can be no question Schmidt was thinking as much of the team as himself. Otherwise, he would have announced he was retiring at the end of the season, then spent the rest of the ’89 season taking up space on a last-place club while he received all the public attention the greatest third basemen in the history of baseball was due.

Only, he didn’t do that. That hastily-called press conference in the clubhouse of the San Diego Padres, 2700 miles away from Philadelphia, was his vehicle to say goodbye.

The guy didn’t even wait for the west coast road trip to finish up to announce his retirement.

What Schmidt did was selfless and, at the same time, extremely self-aware. He knew he was done. He was cooked. It was over and he didn’t want to waste anyone’s time pretending it wasn’t.

At the time, Michael Jack was hitting .203/.297/.372 with just 6 HRs in his first 42 games. And while he wasn’t hurt, a rotator cuff issue the year before cut short his ’88 season.

Mike Schmidt was hurting the team.

Alex Rodriguez is not. At least, not yet.

Oct 18, 2012; Detroit, MI, USA; New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez before game four of the 2012 ALCS against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. Mandatory Credit: William Perlman/THE STAR-LEDGER via USA TODAY Sports

Even though A-Rod is no longer playing up to his contract, he’s still a somewhat productive third baseman. Last year, he posted a WAR of 2.0, hitting .272/.353/.430 with 18 HRs in 122 games.

Clearly, those are not typical A-Rod numbers, but they are still above replacement level.

There is also the money, which is a tremendous motivating factor.

At the time of his retirement, Schmidt was among the highest-paid players in baseball, but at the time, was making just $2 million a year. Collusion by baseball owners helped keep salaries down in those days, so future earnings were not much of a consideration.

Alex Rodriguez is still owed $114 million on a contract that has five years left on it. One could argue Schmidt may have thought twice about the timing of his retirement had that much money been left on the table for him.

Of course, hopefully when A-Rod truly realizes he’s not a productive player anymore, once he realizes he’s hurting the team and that he’s washed up, he’ll do what Mike Schmidt did.

One would hope he would pack it in and retire, for the good of the team.

That would be lovely.

The truth, though, is that big-time sports simply don’t work the way they did in 1989. Most athletes don’t do what Mike Schmidt did, which is what makes it all the more special.

So even though just about every Yankee fan (and probably most baseball fans) would love to see A-Rod say goodbye tomorrow, it’s not going to happen.

Get used to seeing Alex Rodriguez on a baseball field for quite some time.

The Yankees third baseman, who made $29 million this year, is 3-23 so far this postseason with 12 strikeouts in six games played. And those numbers don’t even accurately reflect just how bad A-Rod has been at the plate.

His ineptitude right now is only matched by his seemingly idiotic behavior, which has once again risen to the forefront thanks to a New York Post article on Tuesday, claiming A-Rod was hitting on a couple women during Game 1 of the ALCS against the Tigers.

Might want to think about the timing on that next time, bro.

Rodriguez, who was not in the starting lineup in Game 3 against Justin Verlander, and was not penciled into the lineup for Game 4 ahead of the Yankees’ match-up with Max Scherzer (which was postponed to Thursday due to rain), said he was not pleased about being benched with his team down 3-0 in the series.

“I’m obviously not doing somersaults,” Rodriguez said. “I’m not happy about it. Obviously, you come to the ballpark feeling that you can help the team win, and when you see your name is not in the lineup, you’re obviously disappointed. You’ve got to just shift to being a cheerleader and also make sure that you’re ready when your number is called.”

A-Rod, looking for chicks. Mandatory Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports

So, what you have in New York is an untenable situation, much like the Yanks’ situation with starter A.J. Burnett last year. It’s become clear Alex Rodriguez is persona non grata in that city, and that GM Brian Cashman will try to find a way out from under A-Rod’s unfathomable five years and $114 million left on his contract.

A contract that takes Rodriguez through his 41st birthday.

With the knowledge that the Yanks will certainly look to move A-Rod this offseason, and the Phillies with an obvious hole at third base, the question is obvious.

Would Alex Rodriguez to the Phillies make any sense for Philadelphia?

Even though the Phils do have a gaping hole at third base, filling it with an aging veteran that apparently can’t hit a major league fastball from a right-handed pitcher is probably not the wise course. It’s certainly out of the question if the Phillies would have to assume a major portion of his contract.

ESPN’s Buster Olney reported Wednesday that GMs he’s talked to around baseball all say that, if Rodriguez were a free agent and was about to hit the open market, the most he would get is probably a one-year, $5 million deal.

That means if Cashman wants to move him, he’s going to have to eat $80-100 million of A-Rod’s contract.

Yikes.

However, if Cashman were to eat most of Rodiguez’ contract, might he still be worth the risk? Probably not, for two reasons.

The first is that it’s not just the amount of money that A-Rod is owed, it’s the number of years the team would be financially committed to paying him. Even if the Phils were only the hook for $5 million a year, they would still likely have to pay him that five million dollars each year for the next five years.

So, if the Phillies wanted to drop A-Rod after 2013 or 2014, they’d still be sinking $5 million into a player no longer on the team for another two to three years after that. And even for a team with deep pockets, $5 million for an empty roster space is a sunken cost thePhils obviously shouldn’t assume.

The second reason depends on how you answer this question. Is A-Rod simply in the midst of a horrible slump, or is this the beginning of a steep decline?

There’s no doubt that Rodriguez is not the player he used to be. No 37-year-old player is. But is he as bad as he has looked in the playoffs?

Against right-handers, A-Rod has been a poor hitter all year. He batted .308 (45-for-146) with eight homers, 24 RBIs and a .924 OPS against lefties during the regular season, while hitting .256 (81-for-317) with 10 homers, 33 RBIs and a .717 OPS against righties. His career OPS against righties (.945) and lefties (.944) are nearly equal (stats courtesy of MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch).

So, while it’s not as bad as Ryan Howard against lefties, it’s clear Rodriguez is having more trouble against right-handed hitters at this stage of his career.

His skills are deteriorating, and his days as an everyday third baseman are nearly over.

The only way the Phillies should consider entertaining an offer for Rodriguez is if they only plan to use him as one-half of a platoon, and if Cashman guarantees the Yankees will cover any monetary commitment owed to A-Rod should the Phils decide to drop him from the roster, enabling the Phils to completely clear him from their books should they decide to release him.

That’s not likely.

Allow the Miami Marlins to make the mistake of signing an aging, veteran third baseman whose skills appear to be in rapid decline. A trade there seems inevitable.

Anyone who trades for Rodriguez this offseason is simply trading for a name, and gets what they deserve.

But someone will trade for him. It’s going to happen.

We can only hope Ruben will stay away, unless the Yankees are literally giving him away.

After all, the Phils have their own power hitter-in-waiting currently tearing up the Venezuelan League.

#Phillies Freddy Galvis has blasted his 3rd Home Run of the Venezuela Winter League season. Hitting .458 thus far.

— Top Prospect Alert (@MinorLeagueBlog) October 18, 2012

What, you were expecting Cody Asche?

Bloodstained, antique blades in their hands, a quiet moment of awkward realization passed between them before a savage display of gutteral violence exploded, splattering guts and splintering bones as woodland creatures flee for their lives, sobbing for a time when these woods were a peaceful place.

This is what baseball is all about.

They blew through the first five innings in the time it took for me to turn on the TV and blink.

Then, some of the FOX producers radioed down to the dugouts to let them know there was a host of Taco Bell ads left to play, and if they wanted to have an All-Star game next year, they better tell the pitchers to throw to first and the batters to step out of the box and Tim McCarver to do that thing where words come out of his mouth but all anybody hears is wrongly-ordered stories about nothing.

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