As in “What would (Brandon) Steiner do?”
Pardon the Interruption has a regular feature in which the co-hosts discuss whether an event or story if “Something or nothing.” That’s the first thing that came to mind when I saw a front-page story in today’s New York Times titled “Alex Rodriguez’s Quest Is Going, Going … Unobserved.”
The article, by Billy Witz, points out that Alex Rodriguez is just two home runs away from tying Willie Mays for fourth on the all-time list with 660. Yet you wouldn’t know it because the Yankees, at least internally, aren’t promoting it. There isn’t the lovefest there was when Derek Jeter was approaching 3,000 hits or Mariano Rivera retired.
From the Times‘ piece:
When Rivera left the field in his Yankees finale in 2013, it was a scripted affair, with his longtime teammates Jeter and Andy Pettitte walking to the mound to remove him, a gesture that brought Rivera to tears.
When Jeter reached 3,000 hits with a straight-out-of-Hollywood home run at Yankee Stadium, his teammates and his coaches emptied out of the dugout to meet him at home plate. As the crowd stood and cheered, Jeter embraced each teammate, including Rodriguez, who could be heard telling him, “That’s unbelievable.”
First of all, I’d like to recognize that both Jeter and Rivera were home-grown products who spent their entire professional careers with the Yankees. Rodriguez came to the team when he was 28 and in his 11th Major League season, with 345 homers already in the bank. I believe there’s a big difference between accumulating all your numbers with one team and splitting them up, so I can understand this wouldn’t be as big a deal for the Yankees.
But there are a couple other issues, aren’t there?
First of all, there’s the PED business. Rodriguez missed more than a year out on suspension. The Yankees wanted to dump him then and there, having been a headache for too long. It got to a point where they were so high-and-mighty with their righteous indignation (and they desire to save millions in salary), that they turned him into something of a sympathetic character.
Remember when Barry Bonds was approaching Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record of 755? There was a lot of chirping about that, too. People demurred, saying Bonds had cheated, that Aaron was still the one true king. Would then-commissioner Bud Selig be on hand for the record-breaking moment, or would he stay away, unwilling to offer even tacit approval by his presence.
It does seem cheesey for the Yankees to notify the media that “Brett Gardner, with 185 stolen bases, needed one to pass Wid Conroy for sole possession of sixth place in team history,” or “Andrew Miller needed to pitch one and a third innings to reach 500 for his career,” but not a major milestone like 660 home runs.
Oh, and by the way? Rodriguez is just 48 hits away from 3,000.
Memorabilia dealer Brandon Steiner notoriously misses no opportunity to make a buck off fans’ desire to “own a piece of history.,” For crying out loud, the man even sold groundskeepers’ brooms! So I wonder what will come out on top: the desire to separate fans from their money, or a protest against A-Rod.
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