A-Rod’s Blemish-Free Season Forcing Yankees to Play Nice
September 12, 2015 · Danny Knobler · Jump to comments
Article Source: Bleacher Report - New York Yankees
NEW YORK — The ceremony will be simple, the New York Yankees say.
Nothing elaborate. No special guests. Just a nice little acknowledgement of what Alex Rodriguez did by reaching 3,000 hits.
Simple…as if anything with Rodriguez can ever be simple.
Just like what the Yankees did after Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit, except with A-Rod, nothing can be just like Jeter.
Look, this shouldn’t even be a big story. A guy gets 3,000 hits, and his team honors him. Except in this case, the guy is Alex Rodriguez, and the team is the one he was working on suing this time last year.
And now the Yankees are going to honor him? Well, as a matter of fact, yes, they are.
Not grudgingly, either.
“I think it’s a wonderful gesture, what the club is doing,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said Friday. “And I look forward to it.”
The ceremony will take place Sunday, before the Yankees game against the Toronto Blue Jays, a mere 86 days after A-Rod got to 3,000 with a June 19 home run off Detroit‘s Justin Verlander. The Yankees say the gap was a matter of scheduling, and Rodriguez seems too pleased that it’s happening to be concerned about why it’s happening now.
“I think it’s amazing, truly classy by the Steinbrenners and the Yankees organization,” he said last month, per George A. King III of the New York Post, when the date was announced.
Does he really believe that? This is A-Rod, so you never know for sure. But in this case, it seems like he does.
This ceremony could celebrate the dramatic turnaround in the relationship between the Yankees and the player they so often wished would just go away. It wouldn’t be right to say A-Rod is now a beloved star, or even that everyone in the organization likes him, but he has traveled the road from hated to tolerated and now all the way to accepted.
“He’s been great in the clubhouse, and great on the field,” said general manager Brian Cashman, who in other times wasn’t shy about making his negative A-Rod feelings known. “Everything’s been perfect.”
In the past, even the smallest A-Rod issue could become a huge controversy. This year, even the big issues became small. For all the talk about how the dispute over the home run milestone bonuses in Rodriguez’s contract could get ugly, the two sides ended up settling amicably, compromising on the amount of money and agreeing to donate it to charity.
That decision, announced July 3, came right when the Yankees had worked to get the ball back from the 3,000th hit. It was at that point, team officials say, the thaw in relations became real and Sunday’s ceremony became possible.
It’s real enough now that there’s no reason to think this ceremony will be a one-off occasion. Assuming there are no controversies to come (never a totally safe assumption with A-Rod), the Yankees say they’d be open to honoring Rodriguez again for future accomplishments.
None of this would have happened, of course, if Rodriguez weren’t having the season he has had. For one thing, there probably wouldn’t have been a 3,000th hit to celebrate. A season that began with him batting seventh on Opening Day (and not guaranteed an everyday lineup spot) is ending with him batting third or fifth on most nights for a team headed for the playoffs.
He hit his 30th home run of the season this past Tuesday night against the Baltimore Orioles. While it gave A-Rod 15 seasons with 30 or more, tying Hank Aaron’s major league record, it was the first time since 2010 he had hit that many.
He has 684 career home runs, and while the steroid cloud will never completely leave him alone, it’s once again possible to discuss his accomplishments without immediately mentioning his failures.
“Life moves on,” Cashman said. “Somebody once told me it’ll all be OK in the end, and if it’s not OK, it’s not the end.”
For A-Rod and the Yankees, it’s not the end. For now, though, as Sunday’s ceremony proves, it is all OK.
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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