[新聞] Curtain Call for Rodriguez in Final Act of Melodrama

看板A-Rod作者PerryRod (Partridge)時間18年前 (2007/04/03 13:51)推噓2(2推 0噓 1→)

留言3則, 2人參與討論串1/1

From: http://tinyurl.com/345j3z Curtain Call for Rodriguez in Final Act of Melodrama By JOHN BRANCH Published: April 3, 2007 Not counting the player introductions, it took six minutes of the 2007 season for Yankees fans to boo Alex Rodriguez. It took 10 more minutes to jeer him again. But when Rodriguez reached base and scored what became the winning run, he was rewarded with hearty cheers. In the eighth inning, he hit a two-run homer to seal a 9-5 victory against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. A loud and prolonged ovation pulled Rodriguez back out of the dugout for a quick tip of the batting helmet. And just like that, one day seemed to perfectly represent the ambivalence between Yankees fans and their third baseman, the star of the team’s most persistent melodrama. It also foreshadowed the anxiety that may come over the next 161 games, after which — should the Yankees make the playoffs — the real test of the relationship between New York and Rodriguez will begin, again. When Rodriguez was introduced, the welcoming chorus was filled with uncertainty. Hecklers had the first word, but cheers quickly smothered the razzing. Entering his fourth season with the Yankees, Rodriguez is adored by some for skills that have earned him two Most Valuable Player awards and 10 All-Star nods. Others chide him for everything from his struggles in past postseasons to his cooled relationship with the revered team captain Derek Jeter. The constant backdrop is money: Rodriguez is in the seventh season of a 10-year, $252 million deal, and he has the option to void the final three years and play elsewhere after this season. For now, he is not saying what he will do. But there seems an uncertainty about playing in New York, and Yankees fans have responded, in part, with uncertainty toward Rodriguez. It was on full display yesterday. Rodriguez was received with the full range of fan emotions, and each at-bat of his 2-for-5 afternoon elicited a different response. “I don’t notice,” Rodriguez said of the inconsistency in the greetings he receives. “I mean, it changes so much in five at-bats. It’s like the stock market, you know. But I tell you what, that curtain call made me feel really good. You know, you just build from the positive.” Fortunately for Rodriguez, whose contributions are regraded daily, the positive came after the struggles, and not the other way around. In the top of the first inning, with two outs and Tampa Bay’s Carl Crawford at third base, Ty Wigginton popped the ball up as high as the stadium’s lights, in foul territory near the third-base line. Rodriguez settled underneath it and waited. He waited some more, then lurched back to try to reach the falling ball. It hit the ground behind him. Fans booed loudly. “I kind of started like a moron there,” Rodriguez said of his flub, which was erased when Wigginton grounded out. “Felt really goofy about it.” Manager Joe Torre shuttled some blame to catcher Jorge Posada, but Rodriguez did not look for an excuse. He described the error in a number of ways. He called it “an awful play” and “pretty embarrassing.” “Boy that was lousy, wasn’t it?” he said. And no one disagreed. Rodriguez was offered quick redemption in the bottom of the first. With teammates on first and second base, he worked the count full against Scott Kazmir. Then he struck out, missing at a pitch low and away. More boos. Jason Giambi, the next batter, brought both runners home with a hit, helping Rodriguez escape the glare of his blown chances. But with the score tied, Rodriguez led off the seventh with a hard-stroked shot to left, past Tampa Bay shortstop Ben Zobrist. The official scorer ruled it a single. With Giambi at the plate, Rodriguez stole second. It was not a called play, but a chance that Rodriguez thought he needed to take. “You’ve got to take the game to them,” Rodriguez said. He added that he was “just trying to create, get something started.” Giambi singled to right, and Rodriguez scooted around third to give the Yankees a 6-5 lead. It might have also reminded some of Rodriguez’s detractors that his contributions are not always measured in big numbers and timely hits, but by the range of his talent, from power to speed. “I thought the base hit and the stolen base was very important,” Torre said. “That really was the game changer for me.” In the eighth, with the score 7-5 and Bobby Abreu on second, Rodriguez hammered the first pitch he saw from Tampa Bay reliever Juan Salas over the left-center field fence. Rodriguez was the object of enormous affection, not scorn. “Some good, some bad, and just a good win for us,” Rodriguez said, summing up the game with a pleasant smile. To him, it seemed just another day. Only 161 of them to go. And that is only the regular season. -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 203.69.75.117