With the final chapter far from written, A-Rod's critics proclaim that his story is over

Someday, Alex Rodriguez will inspire a great movie. I once thought Antonio Banderas could play the lead, but I now realize that by the time the film is finished, Banderas will probably be dust. So will we all. It'll take several generations for Hollywood - and baseball - to come to grips with the A-Rod story. Consider the slowly shifting sympathetic public opinion toward Shoeless Joe Jackson and the ruthlessness of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. Long after we are pixels, A-Rod's story will still be churning.

Yesterday, it moved an inch. He ended his lawsuit against Major League Baseball. That's a two-second scene in the movie. Maybe a newspaper will be whirling around and stop with the headline: "A-ROD DROPS SUIT." Of course, the movie will include A-Rod's memoir - as yet unwritten - and his 50 years of life after baseball. There is still the matter of 2015 and whether he plays for the Yankees. There is his inevitable bombastic marriage to some high-maintenance supermodel, his years as a drug kingpin in Miami, the alcoholism, his failed run for Florida governor, his conversation to Scientology, the triple homicide... Yep. A lot of football yet to play.

That's why it's so embarrassing for the profession of print journalism when a bucket of adjectives like Bill Madden climbs up from his bar stool to crank out a ridiculous victory ramble in today's Daily News. For the last 16 months, Madden has functioned as the de facto voice of unnamed Yankee ownership, railing against A-Rod in the hope that the team can escape paying the money the Steinboys personally pressed into Alex's pockets, and trying to do to A-Rod what Madden's idol, Dick Young, once did to Tom Seaver. Last summer, Madden boldly predicted that A-Rod would never see one pitch with the Yankees. Never! Not one! He's gone! Today, he writes:

Now, A-Rod goes for good. He knows that. The Yankees know that. MLB knows that. The only thing left is the contract buyout negotiation. There were reports Friday that A-Rod is eyeing a future in television, that he dropped his lawsuits out of fear he’d be blackballed in baseball. He should know he’s already blackballed himself with all the crap he dragged baseball and the Yankees through these last eight months.
One of the ugliest chapters in baseball history is finally over, and out of it, Rob Manfred — commissioner Bud Selig’s drug sheriff — emerges as the biggest winner.

OK, where do I start? For one thing, Manfred will be remembered for leading one of sports' sleaziest probes in history, with bags of cash being exchanged for dirt. That was going to be the basis of A-Rod's lawsuit. But the taint will remain. As for A-Rod being gone? Madden said that all last summer. I guess he's going to repeat it in columns until the day A-Rod leaves. Then he'll say he told us so.

Listen: It goes with being a Yankee fan that we must deal with out-of-control, ego-bloated paragraph bombers, columnists who are paid to scream in CAPS, of which Madden is an all-star. To be fair, he does his job quite well. He's not paid to be right. He's paid to push buttons. (And his keyboard must have a link that goes directly to my spine.) A-Rod is out, and the Madden victory column was always destined to be written. Now, like A-Rod's lawsuit, it's over. Until next winter.
There are so many chapters yet to play in the A-Rod movie. We still don't know how it ends. I can't wait for the scene when he fights Jose Canseco. Wait a minute. I wonder if Danny Devito will still be alive? He could play The Columnist.