EARNING MY STRIPES

He escaped from Texas. Is it any wonder the Yanks' lastest arrival loves his new position?

You know when the whole thing finally sank in? When all the blurring stopped, life slowed down and I realized this crazy dream was real?

It wasn't when I put on those pinstripes for the first time. It wasn't at the press conference announcing I was a Yankee. It wasn't even when I took the field closer to third base than I ever thought Id be, giving up the only position I've ever wanted to play.

It was after I grounded out to short in my first at-bat as a Yankee this spring. I jogged back to the dugout, sat down and looked all around me. Yogi on one side. Reggie on the other. Don Mattingly over there. And Whitey Ford leaning against a cooler. I couldn't say, "Where am I?" anymore. When you see those faces, you know exactly where you are. And you know how close you are to winning.

I'm a baseball fan before I'm a baseball player. Id pay to spend time around these guys, and now they're in my dugout, on my side, there to help me. Unbelievable. I cant express to you how grateful I am to be a Yankee. I just don't have the words for it.

I honestly feel like I'm on another planet. You go from three straight years of last place to this, and its like breathing a different kind of air. I'm not even counting all the All-Stars in our dugout who are on their way to the Hall of Fame instead of already in it.

That kind of support system will offset the hostile, intense, jagged side of New York that scares me. I shouldn't say scares me, actually, because people will take that the wrong way. The admission of fear is viewed as a weakness, but to understand what I mean, you have to know how I'm wired.

I just look at what's ahead of me now with an enormous amount of respect. Its a huge, huge challenge. But I don't run from that; I run toward it. I respect the game and its challenges enough that I know this one will make me better, stronger. Fear of failure is what fuels me, keeps me on edge and sharp. I'm not as good when I'm comfortable.

I don't doubt my ability, ever, but I have a great fear of failure. Its always hanging over my head. I like it there and I hate it there, if that makes sense. And that's why I ignore all those people who say the Yankees just cant lose this season. There are a million ways to screw this up, but were less likely to trip over them if we remember that, and respect it.

That's why I have to laugh, amazed, when I think of Bobby Bonilla saying New York couldn't wipe the smile off his face or Reggie Jackson saying he was the straw that stirred the drink. I'm just incapable of thinking like that, never mind entering a new clubhouse that way. I'm not saying they were wrong for saying it. It was in keeping with their personalities. But that's just not me.

Barry Bonds is brash like that. I can't compete with him when he turns up the volume on me around the batting cage. One time, he kept needling me, saying he had an H on his forehead for Hall of Famer, that all I had was a P for Potential Hall of Famer, and that the only thing in the world that I had over him was my contract. It was really funny. I love that guy. Best player I've ever seen.

People keep asking me about the pressure of playing in New York, but I actually enjoy pressure. Pressure in business or in life might bother me, but not pressure in baseball. Its what I've prepared for my whole life. Its why I've worked so hard. I've spent too much time sculpting my craft not to trust my talent when I'm asked to perform. Taking an exam isn't pressurized if you know you are properly prepared for it. Two of the biggest years I've had came with big pressure. My last year in Seattle, my contract year, I pushed back an envelope the Mariners gave me without even looking at it. There was probably a $150 million offer in there, but I doubled down. That's not pressure? When you remember what it was like to count your mothers $60 in waitressing tips on the bed, thinking it was all the money in the world?

And then, when I signed the richest contract in the history of professional sports, I had the pressure of living up to it my first year in Texas. I've played at a very high level under huge expectations and challenging circumstances, and I'm very proud of that.

Now this is the biggest challenge of my life, and I feed off that. I cant say for sure, because I don't have a ton of October experience, but I think Id be better with two outs in the bottom of the ninth in Game 7 of the World Series than I was in the heat of a Texas summer with 22,000 people in the stands and our team already out of it.

It's easier to be sharp in one situation than it is in the other. People always held it against me in MVP voting that my at-bats late in the season didnt mean anything, but I think its harder to be sharp when the at-bats don't mean anything than when they do.

Its a lot easier to play well when you're having fun, and winning is obviously a lot more fun than losing. Last season was the toughest of my career because of that. I was overcome with a sense of depression. There were days I didn't want to go to the ballpark. That had never happened to me before.

You have to understand how much I love this game to know how crippling it was to lose some passion for it. I can stay up all night, literally having eight-hour marathon talk sessions about baseball with anybody who'll listen, playing GM and wondering what I would do in certain managing situations. To have some of that knocked out of me was terrible.

I know no one is going to feel sorry for me because of the contract, but Id never really dealt with the frustration of the first two losing seasons, and that made last year even worse. I hit rock bottom in the middle of the season. I remember driving home with my wife, Cynthia, after a game and telling her, "I just don't see the light. Where is the light? What am I in this for?" I would have never gone to Texas if they had told me, "Alex, its going to be you and 24 kids." Never. For no amount of money.

The last thing I want to do is convey disappointment in my teammates there. I don't want them to be the punching bag. Those great teammates are what kept me going. I couldn't let the young guys down, and that's what kept me motivated. I had to set a good example.

That's why my proudest accomplishment in baseball is winning the MVP last year. You don't know how hard it was to perform at a very high level feeling the way I did. Many nights, I could have said, "I don't feel like playing." It would have been very easy to do that in the middle of a last-place Texas summer. But I always enjoyed the games. The part I hated was not being competitive.

People think I traded dollars for losing by choosing to go to Texas, that I sold out, but that's not how it was. I never thought we were going to lose there. I thought I was going to be able to help the Rangers win. And people forget, our payroll was $106 million two years ago, right behind those of the Yankees and Red Sox. It was a nice try, but it didn't work. And then there was a divorce, an amicable one.

I've gone from being one of the oldest starters on my team to being the youngest one. Can you believe that? At 28, I'm the youngest starter on the Yankees, and one of the youngest guys on the roster. I don't describe anything in baseball as easy because this game is so damn hard, but it does take some weight off my back to know the load gets shouldered by so many different people here. There's nothing I can possibly tell Gary Sheffield that he doesn't already know. I just have to do my part here, nothing more. Do what I've always done. I'm playing with peers now.

And lets stop all this nonsense about my relationship with Derek Jeter being strained, okay? He's my best friend in baseball, period. This season is going to be the most fun I've ever had, because I'm going to be playing next to him. There's nothing I can see coming between us. Any speculation otherwise is just comical. I've never had any chemistry problems on any team I've been on, and I'm not going to have any here.

People are always asking me if I regret going to Texas, but I don't. I wasn't ready for the Yankees three years ago. I just wasn't mature enough to make it in New York. I still wanted to play shortstop back then. I grew up with a Cal Ripken Jr. poster over my bed, and I still wanted to be him. I wanted to reach certain goals as a shortstop, personal stuff, Gold Gloves.

But the selfish stuff doesn't matter anymore. My career has advanced in three-year intervals. The first three years, I was in survival mode. I just wanted to be one of the best kids out of Miami. The next three years, I wanted to be an All-Star, one of the best. Then I wanted to be MVP-good. I've done all that. Now its time to win. That's it. Nothing else matters.

When I pack my stuff to go to the park in the morning, I cant wait to get to work because I have a legitimate shot at October. The mean streak in me, the fighters mentality, wants big games and the pressure that goes with them.

Its hard to put a number on how much I want to win, but here's one:$52 million. That's what I had agreed to take out of my contract when I had a handshake agreement with Theo Epstein. I should have gone through the union first, but I was so eager to get closer to winning that I tried to get the approval after the fact. That was my mistake. But if being willing to give up $52 million and switching from the only position I've ever wanted to play doesn't show you how badly I want to win, I don't know what does.

Players kept calling me, saying, "Are you crazy? Are you nuts?" for being willing to take that kind of pay cut. Leaving $52 million on the table is a bad business decision, obviously, but it was a good emotional one. When the Boston deal fell apart, I went from euphoric to heartbroken. It was the biggest emotional roller coaster I've ever been on. But I understand that the interests of 750 players are bigger than the interests of one. If it wasn't for the union, I would have never been able to get the contract I did in the first place. I couldn't betray every other player in baseball.

Cynthia and I were packing to go back to the losing in Texas when my agent, Scott Boras, called. He had just had a conversation with Yankees general manager Brian Cashman about Travis Lee, and they started joking about me playing third. Then the joking turned serious. When Scott called to ask me about changing positions, it was literally the first time I had ever thought about it. It had never crossed my mind. I had never once considered the possibility of being a Yankee, never mind a Yankee third baseman. And then I was one. Just like that.

I've gotten to do some pretty cool things golf with Bill Gates, play poker with Michael Jordan, buy an original Picasso but nothing compares with my first 60 days as a Yankee. This is the happiest I've ever been. Every time I put on the pinstripes, I feel like I'm dreaming.

Don't wake me up until the end of October.

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