"He holds up amazingly well"
Agreed. I still believe with a guy like A-Rod, if you want to do what you can as an owner and/or manager to get the very best from him, you need to use more encouragement than scorn when things aren't going well.
By personality, he's the type who's always harder on himself than anyone else could be. He heaps enough pressure on himself to be perfect. Unlike the many big-shot sports personalities, A-Rod wants so much to please the people he works for and give them every penny's worth, that he's sometimes his own worst enemy. He can beat himself up plenty on his own -- when he's in a slump, or in a pressure-cooker situation, it seems the smart thing for Steinbrenner to do would be to stand behind the guy and and try to remove some of that pressure.
