"Every minute you are angry ... "

The first half of the Message of the Day flashes on the electronic sign outside the Arlington Convention Center, several hundred hot and sweaty yards down the road from The Ballpark. There is a dramatic pause before the thought is completed. " ... is 60 seconds of wasted happiness."

The words are followed with data: Temp: 108°. Time: 6:24 p.m. You note that the temperature has gone up 10° in the three hours since Alex Rodriguez drove past the sign in his midsize gold Benz, honking and waving. "I would have given you a ride," A-Rod says later, smiling, "but I'm not sure where you're going with this story ... I mean, with these questions you've been asking me."

Finally, you've caught Rodriguez in a blatant lie. Until now, you've only suspected he's been less than sincere. But now? C'mon, after three days, Alex knows darn well where you want to go. He knows you want him to bury his face in his hands, come up teary-eyed and say, "Leaving Seattle and coming to Texas was a mistake." Instead, he says, "I made a perfect decision." He knows you want him to say it's killing him to see his old team, the Mariners, making history while his new club, the Rangers, announces a three-year rebuilding plan.

Instead, he says, "I am so proud of my brothers on that team in Seattle and I can sincerely say that, when they win, I feel like there's a part of me winning. And we've got our hard hats on here. We've got some talented young players in the system and a solid core for the future."

And he knows you want him to say that he can't stand the heat ... that he's bored by The "Mallpark" in Surburbia, USA ... that Dallas women wear too much makeup ... that the Cotton-Eyed Joe is dorky ... that the Cowboys stink ... that Mark Cuban's a whackjob ... that Mike Modano's a poser ... and that the whole flippin' Metroplex (what kind of name is that, anyway?) sucks big-time.

Instead, he says, "It reminds me a lot of South Florida weather, the people are nice, it's got great restaurants and shopping and I like the culture. And even with the bad season we're having, we're still going to draw three million fans. That's pretty unbelievable. Just imagine when we win what this place is going to be like."

Alex knows you want him to tell you that, even with his 10-year, $252 million contract, he is miserable. But he won't take you there. In fact, he is scoffing at you, not giving you a single minute of anger. Instead, he's giving you hour after hour of happiness and answers that Miss Texas contestants memorize for their personal statements. "If I had to do it 100 times over again," he says, "I'd make [the same decision] 100 times over again. I couldn't be prouder of my decision to play for the Texas Rangers. I thought this was going to be good, but it's so much better than what I thought. We're going to win here, I know it."

You're not satisfied with this. Why? The Contract. He may say all the right things, stay miles away from trouble, put up ridiculous numbers, play great defense, dress impeccably, love his mother, stay up until 2 a.m. watching baseball on his big-screen TV, studying the game more than he really has to -- and none of it matters. He's the 26-year-old who will make $2 million more than a quarter of a billion over the next 10 years -- with an "out" after seven years and more escalators than the Mall of America. Therefore, you want to see him in despair over a season gone bad.

The last thing you want is for him to be reasonable, philosophical and, worse yet, patient.

"It's human nature to want to see people get angry," he says. "But in baseball, you almost have to accept that it's going to be one year 'yes' and one year 'no.' Unless you're the Yankees, it's not easy to be in it every year. We have to take this year and learn from it and come back strong next year. In Seattle, we lost 83 games in 1999 and four months later, we were on our way to winning 91 and playing in the ALCS. We can do that here."

This is the kind of talk that makes you angry.

***

Getting to know A-Rod is not easy. On one hand, he'll pull up a seat for you next to his locker, look you in the eye, ask you your first name, where you went to college, where you live now -- in other words, treat you like you're not used to being treated in a major league clubhouse. He'll even ask for your opinions on various subjects. On the other hand, Rodriguez measures his every word of every answer to every question like a 2-0 fastball, often pausing to say, "Let me think about how I'd like to be quoted on that subject." While that sets off the Bogus Alarm, you can empathize.

This winter, A-Rod told a writer from Esquire that his best friend, Derek Jeter, has never had to hit third or fourth for the Yankees or be that team's main run producer. Those comments would be, for one thing, true. For another, they would be enough to fuel a good four days of spring training "A-Rod Said, Derek Said" stories. "I've learned people can take a very nonchalant comment and run with it," Rodriguez admits. "So, yes, I'm careful about what I say."

But when he signed his record-setting deal last December, Rodriguez says he was careful about what he didn't say. Specifically, he claims he never said, "It's not about the money."

"The second thing out of my mouth was, 'This was an economic decision,'" Rodriguez says. "Number one, I said how happy I was to be playing for an owner like Mr. Hicks, who was so committed to winning, not only now, but for the long haul. Then I acknowledged that the contract was unbelievable, beyond my wildest dreams, and that, yes, the money was important."

By the time Rodriguez had signed with Texas on Dec.11, of course, he had already been ordained the greediest player of all time by the New York Mets, who held a press conference on Nov.13, after one negotiating session with agent Scott Boras, in which GM Steve Phillips announced his club was pulling out of the A-Rod Auction, due to outrageous "demands" by Boras for things like billboards, use of a private jet, office space and a personal marketing staff. Phillips called Rodriguez a "managed athlete" and said that if the club agreed to such perks, it would create a "24 and 1" situation in the Mets clubhouse that would threaten the "fabric of the team."

The ever image-conscious Rodriguez was stung. Did Boras actually make these demands? That depends on which side you want to believe. Rodriguez not only says, "We could prove in court that we did not," but also, "Scott and I had a meeting in October, and we said, let's make sure we don't mention anything like planes or perks, because we'd seen Kevin Brown get hammered over that stuff. We didn't want to make that mistake. No way we'd ask for any perks."

Rodriguez especially did not want to look bad in New York because, well, his plan was to play there.

"I had a dream to play for the Mets. That was my favorite team since I was 6 years old, and I thought it would be neat to play for the team I loved as a kid. I told Scott that's the one team that I will definitely be very flexible with, before the process even started. That was A1A. My first choice. I was looking forward to meeting with the owners and telling them my dream. But it was done in one day. I was disappointed."

Enter Tom Hicks, the 54-year-old Rangers and Dallas Stars owner. A leveraged buyout specialist, Hicks cut through everything like a human Ginzu: "I don't think the Mets ownership group ever had a serious interest in Alex, and I think they, as we all do, had to worry about what their fans thought of their actions. So, I think, unfairly to Alex, they tried to take care of their relationship with their fans. What we told Alex is, first of all, that we plan to win and, secondly, that we want to build the club around him. We offered a record-setting contract because we think he's a special player and person, and we got him to sign for 10 years. His annual salary is not much higher than Derek Jeter's or Manny Ramirez's or Carlos Delgado's. But we've got the main cog of our offense and up-the-middle defense locked up for a decade."

By the time he signed, A-Rod was staring at a market that had gotten a little clouded. The Braves were interested, but wouldn't give him a no-trade clause. The Rockies were interested, but Alex, the student of the game, wondered if playing consistent, winning baseball was ever going to be attainable at Coors Field. The Orioles made a late move to get into the game, but their chaotic front office situation was troublesome.

And then there were the Mariners, who seemed uninterested in retaining their shortstop once he started playing one offer against another. Seattle offered up a five-year, $92 million contract seemingly just to cut the cord and get on with building their team for 2001. "If you were me," Rodriguez asks, patting you on the knee, "what would you have done? Taking everything into account now, all the positives and negatives. What would you have done? I want to know."

For what it's worth, the fabric of the Rangers is fine. It's their pitching that stinks. The club's preseason notion that Rick Helling and Kenny Rogers would keep them in games as the Nos.1 and 2 starters and that the offense -- with A-Rod and Pudge Rodriguez and Rafael Palmeiro -- would score enough runs against other teams' Nos.3 and 4 starters to keep the Rangers in the hunt now seems downright silly, especially with what the pitching-heavy Mariners have accomplished. The free agent signings of Ken Caminiti (released) and Andres Galarraga (traded to the Giants for prospects) also look bad in the rear-view mirror, considering their bullpen could have used one or five more decent arms. They got off to an 11-17 start that set them 10 1/2 games back in the race and forced manager Johnny Oates to resign. At that point, Hicks started talking about a "three-year mission," and Alex claimed he'd be reporting to The Ballpark every day with his lunch pail and hard hat.

"In a way, it's almost a blessing that we're not, you know, .500," says A-Rod. "Because when you're where we are, you can't sugarcoat it and say you're missing one piece or two. I think this organization knows it's got some work to do, and part of the reason I feel so good to be here is because I know we won't lose for financial reasons. I'm going to be a free agent recruiter this off-season, every off-season. And I've let Mr. Hicks know, I never want to be the guy hurting the team. I'm going to be here a long time, and I'm willing to be flexible about deferring money, if that's needed. Even this year, we're where we are because we've underachieved, not because we underspent."

If the Rangers were hoping to get a decent return on their investment, well, A-Rod has certainly held up his end of the deal. Entering August, he was hitting .321 (10 points better than his career average) and was on pace to hit 44 homers (his career high is 42) and drive in 134 (career high: 132). He has not missed a game, not that he had to justify anything to his teammates, who claim there's no jealousy to be found in the Rangers clubhouse.

"There are fans around the league who don't like the amount of money he makes," says Helling, "and they've been booing him. But Alex plays the game for the right reasons. He's one of the hardest workers on the team, he's always here early. In spring training, he worked with the young guys, took them under his wing, even took a group of kids, prospects, to his house in Miami on his off-day. He's as far from the stereotype of a superstar as you can get."

Says centerfielder Gabe Kapler, "We all know, there's no one as deserving of that contract as Alex Rodriguez. Nobody can handle the pressure better and nobody can handle the expectations better. As a player and a person, he's even better than I thought. Every day he does something jaw-dropping. I was happy on the day he signed. Happy to see him reset the bar, to be the highest-paid player in the game, and happy he was coming here."

Isn't anybody around here hot and bothered, ticked off, even a little angry? "My only complaint," says A-Rod, "is that I wish the schedule was 200 games instead of 162."

Whether it's sincere or not, you get the message.

This article appears in the August 20 issue of ESPN The Magazine.