The most precious commodity in sports? Honesty. The real, sincere, vulnerable, painful, inside stuff. It reveals itself rarely, most often in unguarded moments. Sometimes it results, ridiculously, in an apology. The silliest scenario is this cycle: Athlete or coach says something truthful, gets pilloried for his or her candor�How dare you say how you really feel!�and is forced to express regret in a hastily arranged statement.
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Close Getty ImagesMark Teixeira
That's why sports figures seldom let the truth out, preferring to duck behind clich�s and banalities. It's one reason why the maddening catchall "It is what it is" has become a silly substitute for any real insight. The truth? The truth is not worth the risk.
The other day, the Yankees' Mark Teixeira didn't care. He spoke the truth. In an interview with the Journal's Dan Barbarisi, the veteran first baseman, now 32, spoke sincerely about the toll of aging, and the readjustment of personal and outside expectations. In his 20s, Teixeira was one of the most elite players in baseball, but as he crossed into his 30s, his statistics began to slip. For the past three seasons, his batting average has hovered at a pedestrian .250. His slugging and OPS have trickled down. He is far from a disaster at the plate�two seasons ago, he hit 39 home runs and 111 RBI; last year Teixeira managed 24 home runs and 84 RBI in 123 games�but he is not the frightening handful he once was.
More- Teixeira Knows His Limits
And here's the thing: He admits this. "To think that I'm going to get remarkably better as I get older and [break] down a little bit more, it's not going to happen," Teixeira told Barbarisi. "Maybe I'm slowing down a tick. Look, I'm not going to play forever. Eventually you start, I don't want to say declining, but it gets harder and harder to put up 30 [home runs] and 100 [RBI]."
Teixeira's self-awareness feels significant, given the context. Aging is the bane of the elite athlete, but over the past generation, the aging process has been perverted. The incursion of performance-enhancing drugs has distorted expectations about what players can accomplish in their sunset years. Stars rounded 35, sometimes 40, with little diminishment. Credit was given to spectacular exercise regimens and diets and other distracting nonsense, but the PED truth eventually revealed itself. Superhuman was indeed superhuman. Artificial.
All Teixeira was acknowledging was what's supposed to happen�a natural, noticeable decrease�was happening to him. The typical baseball turndown begins in the early 30s, even for the greats. Teixeira has begun to adjust his own expectations. He told Barbarisi he was on the backside of his career.
"Why not focus on the things I do well?" Teixeira asked.
Ah, but here's the thing. Teixeira isn't simply an aging employee looking to leave the office closer to 5 p.m. instead of 8. He's halfway through a Yankee megadeal that pays him $180 million. That number was paid for past performance, with the belief it would continue. There are a lot of delusional deals like his in baseball. But here again, Teixeira ran straight to the facts.
"I have no problem with anybody in New York, any fan, saying you're overpaid," he said. "Because I am. We all are."
And it wasn't just that he was overpaid. Teixeira said that anyone making $20 million a year wasn't very valuable. An underpaid newcomer like AL MVP runner-up Mike Trout? Precious. But a guy making $20 million is often an immovable rock. "There's nothing you can do that can justify a $20 million contract," Teixeira said.
Now it's hard to feel a frenzy of empathy for a man who admits he fails to warrant eight-figure salary that he solicited and signed. It doesn't sound like Teixeira is ready to offer the Yankees a refund. But Teixeira's comments were still refreshing. An overpaid, aging ballplayer on a team full of them, admitting he is overpaid. It's the kind of truth a player always knows, but seldom shares.
It's impossible to look at Teixeira's situation without comparing it to a more complicated Yankee drama: the status of third baseman Alex Rodriguez. Rodriguez is 37, recovering from hip surgery, and once more finds himself amid allegations of involvement with PEDs, which Rodriguez has denied through a public-relations representative. It's a sticky mess, the latest in a string, and there is speculation that the Yankees would love to extricate themselves from the five-year, $114 million remainder of Rodriguez's deal. It appears they want to be free.
Teixeira is trying to be free. His comments might not please fans or fellow players (or agents). His candor won't be a happy memory like an All-Star season, and when Teixeira slumps, his honesty may not be good enough to keep the wolves at bay. But it is a step toward reality. It is liberating. Because it is the truth.
Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com
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