More photos » by Elise Amendola - AP

Browse more photos »

And hard, that out of hell leads up to light."

That's how it felt in 2001 and 2004. The way those seasons ended were the equivalent of baseball hell. An error and bloop single in the ninth inning of game seven in 2001... and of course the (in)famous and unprecedented collapse in 2004.

Because of those tragedies, the recently ended drought (eight years to the day, in fact, since game seven in 2001) seemed about twice as long.

Even the additions of Jason Giambi, Mike Mussina, Hideki Matsui, Gary Sheffield and Alex Rodriguez weren't enough. We had the best player in baseball and couldn't get it done. He couldn't get it done.

Then it got even worse for Alex. He had a messy divorce, hooked up with a crazy woman, and got exposed as a cheater. On top of all that, he received news that he might miss the whole 2009 season with a hip injury. It was his own personal hell.

No one could have predicted at the time, but that sequence of events was probably the best thing to ever happen to him.

Continue reading this post »