Rodriguez’s tribute before his final game with the New York Yankees on Friday night lasted just five minutes due to a massive thunder and lightning storm.
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Friday night’s 6-3 Yankees win ended with the most unlikely sight: Rodriguez heading out for the ninth inning with a fielder’s glove on his left hand, sent out to play one final inning at third base, a position he had not started at in a game since April 27, 2015. But yes, it’s going to be hard to top that ending.
Recently, I did an article on should Alex be in the Hall of Fame and I said he should be in, eventually. The Yankees won the game 6-3.
After sitting on the bench unused for much of the past month, Rodriguez was in the lineup as the DH and batting third for his 2,784th and perhaps final regular-season game as a major league player in a career that started with Seattle in 1994, moved on to Texas in 2001 and then NY three years later.
But for the first time all week, Alex Rodriguez, who has insisted all along he can still play major league baseball, sounded as if he no longer wanted to. “I have a huge heart”. I wanted it to be something. Brad Miller has managed 98 hits with 52 runs, 20 homers and 48 RBI.
“I’m very grateful that Joe gave me the opportunity to play third”. As touching as the final moments were – Rodriguez scooping up dirt at third base as a keepsake, then embracing his two young daughters in the middle of his post-game interview with the YES Network – no one truly knew if this was the end.
“I put the fans through a lot”. Rodriguez belted 696 in his time with the Mariners, Rangers and Yankees, hitting 33 as recently as last season.
He was given the option – and said yes – to becoming special adviser which starts next spring training. “But like I’ve always said, you don’t have to be defined by your mistakes”. “I am 41. I am not that old”. Being that he is so close to the 700 mark, nothing would shock me to see him playing on another team maybe within a month, if not defiantly by next season. “Kind of getting chills thinking about it”. “I feel for him [and] that he’s not going out a champion and not going out on a 30-home run season”. “If I wake up on time tomorrow, I would watch tomorrow’s game”, Rodriguez said in a news conference before the Yankees’ game against the Tampa Bay Rays.
The evening began with a thunderstorm that descended upon the Bronx just as a ceremony commemorating A-Rod’s years was about to begin. Fans applauded, many of whom never warmed to a player who in 2009 admitted using performance-enhancing drugs, then served a yearlong drug suspension in 2014.
“That not for me to say”, Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez has played 22 years in the majors.
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Rodriguez announced in March that he meant to retire at the end of 2017.
