Yankees fans conflicted as Alex Rodriguez reaches 3,000 hits
By Alex Ferguson
Last Updated: 22/06/15 3:00pm
On Friday night baseball star Alex Rodriguez got to the revered 3,000 hit mark.
Our US sports expert – and Yankees fan (incidentally) Alex Ferguson talks about the ups and downs of supporting ‘A-Rod’ and why the celebration wasn’t that big.
It was my birthday on Thursday. While Tiger Woods was in the middle of his first round failure at the US Open, New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez was reaching hit No 2,999 against the Florida Marlins. My good friend Andy Berry even interrupted the late London night by texting me from Chicago to tell me about it.
Rodriguez hit the mark with a home run on Friday night. He hit the ball, the arm went up in the air, and there was a celebration from the team. It wasn’t the glorious celebration you would have seen had the hitter been Derek Jeter, but it was enough to see that Alex Rodriguez was at last starting to become part of the Yankees organisation.
I thought about Rodriguez hitting No 3,000. Only 28 players in baseball’s vaunted hitting history had reached the mark, and all of them apart from Derek Jeter and Pete Rose are in the Hall of Fame. Jeter’s eligibility for Cooperstown hasn’t come up yet, and Rose is still ineligible due to the fact he was caught betting on baseball in the late 1980s as a manager, a big ‘no-no’ in the eyes of the voters. People think that Rose could make it this year.
The last person to reach 3,000 was Jeter. If Christopher Walken was the King of New York, Derek Jeter was the God. That’s what happens when you’re captain of the Yankees and don’t put your head above a parapet. Jeter reached 3,000 in 2011 to much fanfare, and everyone bowed to him.
But now one of baseball’s most divisive characters is at that stage, it’s difficult to see where the bowing is going to come from. Firstly, there’s the ‘steroid thing’. Alex Rodriguez was suspended for the entire 2014 season for lying to Major League Baseball about taking performance-enhancing drugs. He admitted in a 2009 interview that he had taken drugs when with the Texas Rangers (569 hits), insists that he career up to then with the Yankees had been clean up to then. That was 929 hits.
But then Rodriguez – after a long and battle with Major League Baseball (and a ream of lies by him) – admitted taking drugs between 2010 and 2012 while with the Yankees. Or 370 hits worth, if you’re thinking in today’s history terms.
In other words, Rodriguez has had 1,299 hits (give or take) where he’s not been a clean baseball player. Now, he’s not the only player to have ever taken performance-enhancing drugs in that era, but it still leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. Will he be in the Hall of Fame when he retires? The jury is out there.
The second thing that people root against Rodriguez is his postseason actions, which are more memorable for his fighting with Red Sox players than anything he’s really done on the diamond. And although he’s got a World Series ring from the Yankees win against Philadelphia, he’s more famous for leaving 29-straight batters on base during Yankees postseason runs than any real jaw-dropping ‘Yankees’ moments.
And the third thing people dislike about Alex Rodriguez is really not his fault: The money. Rodriguez is on one of the biggest contracts in baseball, firstly signing a 10-year, $252m deal to play for Texas and then after that went south after three years. He went to the Yankees. After deciding that $252m over 10 years wasn’t enough for him (or agent Scott Boras), he got a $10-year, $275m deal from the team in 2007. And with that money comes pressure to perform. And A-Rod, since signing his two huge deals, hasn’t really had a big year since 2008. He hasn’t hit over 35 homers since 2008, and injury problems have beset him since 2011. It’s not exactly been value for money.
His off-the-field exploits with the likes of Madonna, Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Hudson have been cannon fodder for the New York media, and Rodriguez seemed to enjoy the attention of playing the Kardashian more than playing with Jeter. And that hasn’t sat well with New York fans.
But despite all the ill-will coming at him during last two years, Alex Rodriguez has been a somewhat changed man lately, taking it all in his stride. He’s been humble talking to the media. He’s hit home runs (12 this season), he’s hit pretty well (batting .278), and he’s been a good team member. And when he did pass Willie Mays for fourth on the all-time home runs list (661) on May 8th, he didn’t create a big fanfare.
Could the home run on Friday night (followed by a 5 RBI day on Saturday) be a turnaround in baseball’s relationship with Alex Rodriguez? As a Yankee fan and a witness of one of baseball’s greatest talents, let’s hope so.
