Sorry, A-Rod

A-Rod's sixth
Originally uploaded by vegacura.

I hate it when the fans at Yankee Stadium boo one of their own. Yes, Randy Johnson has looked vulnerable this year, but do the catcallers think he wants to give up moon shots to David and Manny? And do they think the best player since DiMaggio to play for the Yankees wants to pop up in the third inning against the Crimson Hose?

There are reasons to boo at the ballpark. When a hitter doesn't run hard out of the box and ends up with a single on the hit he thought was going to clear the fences, but didn't. When an outfielder doesn't hit the cutoff man, allowing the potential winning run to make it to second. When a pitcher doesn't cover first on balls hit to the first baseman. Barry Bonds outside of PacBell (or whatever they call it this year). Managers/pitchers who intentionally walk Bonds in situations where his hitting a homerun isn't going to give the Giants a lead. Carl Everett pretty much anytime, anywhere.

But booing Johnson because there's something going wrong with either his mechanics or his brain is just ridiculous. Booing A-Rod because he pops up in the third inning of a game in May is equally so. I mean, Curt Schilling, the pitcher Rodriguez was facing, is not some journeyman middle reliever.

Thus, I do not boo the players I root for simply for having a rough night. But even I was guilty of misjudging Rodriguez following that pop up in the third, saying to Madam Cura, "Geez, Rodriguez's consistently poor play against the Red Sox is beginning to seem almost pathological."

What a fool am I.

Now it was a regular-season game on the 10th of May at Yankee Stadium and he had gotten booed in the third inning of a tie game. Now it was the fifth inning and Schilling had just struck out Jeter and Giambi, sat them both right down. A-Rod again. A-Rod with just six home runs for the season at a time when Giambi had twice that. Schilling went right after him, against the Alex Rodriguez who crushed one into the left-field seats, and the Yankees weren't going to lose their third in a row this season to the Red Sox.

Now they cheered A-Rod at Yankee Stadium.

They didn't ask him to come out for a curtain call the way they had when Giambi hit his home run. No worries, he wasn't coming out, anyway, and not because he had a case of hurt feelings. "It was 4-3 in the sixth inning," he said later. "It wasn't the time." But he had changed the game for good, hit Schilling hard, hit the Red Sox hard. A couple of batters later, Jorge Posada hit a two-run home run and it was 6-3 for the Yankees. Game, set, match.

"Yesterday you look bad," A-Rod said. "Today you look okay."

There is this idea that he always plays against the Red Sox the way he did Tuesday night. He doesn't. In fact, in the '04 and '05 regular seasons and in the two games the Yankees and Red Sox had played this season before last night, Rodriguez had hit .279 against the Red Sox. Derek Jeter had hit .221. Rodriguez had nine home runs and 20 RBI and 30 runs scored. Jeter had four home runs and 13 RBI and 22 runs scored. In the '04 ALCS, A-Rod hit .258 with two home runs, five RBI, eight runs scored. Jeter hit .200 with no home runs and five RBI and five runs scored. It is just always easier to blame A-Rod, because he doesn't have four World Series titles in the books the way Jeter does, easier to blame him against the Red Sox and everybody else.