A-Rod's 600th (Post-Mortem): A Long, Slow Descent Into Baseball History

A-Rod hit his 599^th homerun on July 23^rd. He finally connected for 600 Wednesday. While separated by only 13 calendar days, the gap between 599 and 600 also contained 46 At Bats, four different opposing teams and 103 specially-marked 'A' balls. For Yankees' fans, the wait felt like an eternity, and relatively speaking, it was. Willie Mays, who was the next slowest, did it in 21. The Babe did it in one.
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Over the course of his prolonged pursuit, interest from fans also waned. The average price for the first Yankees' home game with A-Rod at 599 was $71. After four home-games and one road-trip, the average price for the chance to witness baseball history was $46.
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For A-Rod, the thousands of popping flashbulbs that captured every pitch and swing had clearly become a burden. Prior to 600, he had been mired in a 1-for-20 slump that had a few wondering if he'd still be the youngest man to hit 600 when it actually happened. When it finally did--on a 1^st Inning, 2-0 pitch from Shaun Marcum--the weekday afternoon crowd was barely in their seats. As 'A-104' came to rest in the netting above Monument Park, A-Rod rounded first base with outstretched arms, as if asking the baseball gods 'what took you long'?
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As long as the wait seemed, it's over now and Rodriguez stands alongside Bonds, Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Griffey and Sosa in the canon of homerun heroes. Some will argue that, along with Bonds and Sosa, A-Rod's 600 shouldn't count the same as Ruth's, Mays' and Griffey's. Regardless of the performance-enhancing discount one applies, though, 600 is an achievement worthy of significant recognition. For anyone able to catch Wednesday's August afternoon ballgame in the Bronx, it was also probably worth the $46 bucks (on average).

 

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Comments

[life-of-riley]

09:02 PM on 08/12/2010

He's an admitted cheater - why is he allowed to claim 600 hr's when some of those were hit when he, admittedly, was juiced. Profesional sports leagues and the IOC have no interest in stopping performance enhancing drugs - just stopping the bad press.

[JayRobThom]

03:45 AM on 08/08/2010

The steroid users wouldn't have concealed their use of substances, even when they weren't banned, if they thought that it wasn't wrong to use them. They wanted to get credit for being great without getting there fairly. And the rotten businessmen who run Major League Baseball were & are too dishonest to admit that they knew it was going on & that it was wrong, because they were too busy counting their profits. It's up to the fans & the writers to disbar the players & expunge the records & refuse to treat Bonds as the equivalent of Aaron, or Sosa and Rodriguez as the equivalent of Mays. Ken Griffey Jr. is the only one in the steroid era who made it honestly & fairly to 600.

[hip dibler]

04:10 PM on 08/07/2010

do the yankees have a juicebox night? come to the game in a rods jersey and get a free juicbox.