A-Rod Wins Third MVP

Alex Rodriguez, third basemen for the New York Yankees, has won the American League MVP for the third time in his career when he received 26 first place votes in the MVP voting. Rodriguez, who had a monster season this past year with a .314 batting average, 54 home runs, and 156 RBI. This is the second time Rodriguez has won the MVP award with the Yankees. He won it the first time with the Texas Rangers in 2003, where he played shortstop. The New York Yankees are the United States' most winning franchise with 26 world championships and the Yankees have failed to get one in the four years Rodriguez has been in New York. Rodriguez has repeatedly stated that he'll trade in all of his personal accomplishments for a world championship and that has been the biggest reason he wanted to come to the Yankees. This offseason, Rodriguez opted out of the last three years of his 10 year $252 million contract on the advice of his agent Scott Boras. Rodriguez and his agent were apparently looking to get a contract of more than $300 million. There were no teams that were willing to give him that much money and he ended up ditching Boras and negotiating on his own with the Yankees on a new contract. It has been a blow to Boras' reputation, as he was recently fired by pitcher Kenny Rogers. It was reported that Rodriguez ditched Boras in the contract negotiations on the advice from billionaire Warren Buffet, who has been friends with Rodriguez. Nonetheless, Rodriguez has turned in another good regular season but has not turned it into playoff success, as the Yankees fell to the Cleveland Indians 3 games to 1 in the American League Division Series. Magglio Ordonez was a distant second in the MVP race. Was this Rodriguez's best season in his career? Will Rodriguez duplicate this past season's performance next season? Will Rodriguez win a championship with the New York Yankees?