It’s been a dismal season for Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez (a.k.a. A-Rod) with fielding errors and batting slumps as well as boos from New York fans. Even the newspaper headlines have been seething, asking readers questions like: “Do You Hate This Man?” Boyhood chum and pro-ball player Doug Mientkiewicz quipped in late September: “I would have thought he’d have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge by now.”

But one possible clue to A-Rod’s staying power was revealed this week by ESPN-2 and The New York Times: A copy of Lama Surya Das’s “Awakening the Buddha Within: Tibetan Wisdom for the Western World” has been spied sitting in Rodriguez’s locker.

“It has been a very challenging year,” Rodriguez has said. “You have to experience it and learn from it.”

Sounds to me like the book’s been doing more than just sitting there.