Has A-Rod finally met the Babadook?

Let the record show that Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez outlasted Bud Selig, George Steinbrenner, Curt Schilling, Willie Mays and even Derek Jeter. He's still out there - hands down, the greatest ballplayer of his generation - bating third for all to see. And someday - maybe decades from now, after the indignation and anger has settled down - A-Rod will be defined, if not appreciated, as a great player, rather than a lying, self-centered buffoon. He took all their bullets, all their arrows... and he survived.

MLB's army of lawyers couldn't take him down. The tag team of Brute Bernard and Skull Murphy - alias Luipica and Madden - couldn't pull him under. Not even Hal Steinbrenner and his castle of flying monkeys could make him surrender. Somehow, A-Rod played on. Good grief, he might yet outlast Didi Gregorius!

But now comes the ultimate dragon, the one that no knight ever defeats.

It's one thing to return from adversity and a home run. In Hollywood, that's where the movie ends. A-Rod touches home plate, gets mobbed, and the credits roll. But in life, there is tomorrow's game, and then the game after that. In early April, A-Rod wowed his critics and proved again that he was once a great player, regardless of what super-soldier elixirs he ingested. But last week, he looked like a geezer pushing 40, who would sell his soul for a bloop single. A long slog of a season looms. A-Rod needs only look out to Carlos Beltran in RF to see what he might soon become. And he better not hope that Beltran is protecting him in the order.

In the end, they all crumble. King Kong may swat down a plane, but he always plunges to his death. Old Yeller always gets shot, and Free Willy always turns up in some Eskimo's lamp. For A-Rod, the end will be ugly - a loud chorus of boos, probably even from the Yankee side. It won't be fun. It won't be pretty. But it cannot be averted.

Of course, this might merely be a spring slump, a market correction. But A-Rod, at .240, may be finally meeting the boogeyman. Tonight in Fenway, he'll hear the future.