Nr. 3000 for A-Rod in 7-2 win over Tigers

Well, it was hard to ignore as most media wrote about it in the last few days. A-Rod got his 3000th hit in grand style with a solo homer to right field in his first at bat of the game vs the Tigers. The first pitch that Justin Verlander delivered to him was a 95 mph fastball and A-Rod jacked it over the fences to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead.

The Yankees hit a couple of homeruns next to A-Rod’s bomb. Didi Gregorius hit a solo shot in the second inning and Brett Gardner hit a two-run homer in the fifth. Gardner had a very productive night as he went 4 for 5 with three RBI and two runs scored.

Adam Warren was solid in eight innings as he gave up two runs on seven hits and struck out seven.

As for A-Rod, his 3000th hit was his 667th homerun of his career. Only two other players have hit a homerun for their 3000th hit: Derek Jeter and Wade Boggs.

Eventhough it wasn’t as outrageous as when Jeter hit his 3000th hit, the fans cheered on Rodriguez. It is something that you see often: fans of the team where a PED user plays are more willing to forgive him than fans of other teams. Look at Barry Bonds, who was dispised by most of MLB fans but who was a god in San Francisco. Okay, okay, I know that there never has been found any proof that Bonds used PED, but the suspicion was there anyway.

Rodriguez hit his first MLB homerun with the Seattle Mariners in 1995. In a lengthy career that brought him to Seattle, Texas and New York, he had his ups and certainly his downs. After PED use became a big issue, eventualy he confessed that he started to use PED because of the pressure of living up to his big contract. At one point he even got permission of MLB to use PED’s because his body got addicted to them.

Despite his big number of homeruns and 3000 hits, it is questionable if he will ever will be voted into the Hall of Fame. There are other players with big records that haven’t been voted in because of PED use, even when it was allowed to use them. Mark McGwire to name one.
Perhaps many fans will say that he isn’t HOF worthy simply because A-Rod is the guy that you’d love to hate. But if his career had not been tainted by PED use, it would have been HOF worthy for sure. It is a damn shame that he spoiled his own chances to be voted into the HOF.

This record will mean a lot to Rodriguez himself, but to many, if not  most of the fans it doesn’t mean a thing. Too bad that the player himself ruined something that could have been a fine career.