Baseball isn't as much fun anymore for ex-Angel Francisco Rodriguez

NEW YORK — As a boy growing up in Venezuela, Francisco Rodriguez played baseball because he enjoyed it.

Then he got good at it. Really good.

And as a result, he says, baseball's not so much fun anymore.

"It's not sad," he says, looking sad. "But it makes you realize a lot of things."

It made Rodriguez realize that, at the major league level, baseball is a business, not a game. Made him realize that loyalty doesn't always follow a player from the field into contract talks. Made him realize that nobody, not even the season record-holder for saves, is irreplaceable.

"It opens your eyes a little bit," says Rodriguez, who parted company with the Angels last winter after seven seasons in Anaheim and signed a three-year contract with the New York Mets as a free agent. "Now you're not playing for fun, you're playing for your career. Pretty much you're an employee. Sometimes you don't want to see it that way. But that's pretty much the reality.

"The day you don't get the job done, the day you get hurt, the day you, basically, [don't] do what they ask you to do, they're going to throw you away and they're going to get somebody else to do your job. That's how it is."

That fate doesn't figure to befall Rodriguez any time soon.

Rodriguez was selected to the National League team for tonight's All-Star game in St. Louis. The Mets' new closer has 23 saves, tied for best in the league and second-best in the majors, and is on pace for a fifth consecutive season with at least 40 saves. His 217 saves since 2005 are tops in the majors.

"He has been all we thought he would be. And even more," Mets Manager Jerry Manuel says. "We feel very good, obviously, when we get the ball to him. His instincts have been off the charts. [He] can read swings and misses and those types of things.

"He's been much more than I anticipated."

For that, the Mets will pay Rodriguez at least $37 million -- or about half what the right-hander was looking for last winter. And therein lies the reason for his discontent -- and the reason he's no longer an Angel.

The Angels tried to sign Rodriguez to a multiyear contract after the 2007 season, offering him $34 million over three seasons. But when the Yankees signed their closer, Mariano Rivera, to a three-year, $45-million deal a month later, the talks between Rodriguez and the Angels broke down and they eventually ended up in arbitration, where Rodriguez was forced to settle for a one-year, $10-million contract for 2008.