A-Rod Hits 3,000th But Nobody Cares

How is it possible one of the greatest hitters in baseball history gets his 3,000th hit, yet nobody cares? Adam Crawford talks the asterisk of baseball.

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Beneath The Surface is peeling back the layers of this onion we call sports.

Beneath The Surface Friday night, amongst the home crowd of Yankee Stadium, the most controversial figure active in baseball stepped into the batter’s box. He went through his routine gripping and regripping the bat, staring down the pitcher, a one Justin Verlander, and took his place.

As the pitch came in and A-Rod took his historic swing, the roars of celebration were limited to Yankee Stadium.

When I was a kid I remember A-Rod playing for the Mariners, he was the best up and coming shortstop in the game next to Derek Jeter. He was lanky and quick, yet he had remarkable power. His ability to rocket the baseball to first from seemingly any position within a 3-mile radius of shortstop was the envy of any aspiring infielder. Then he cut the deal with the Rangers.

Then he cut the deal with the Rangers.

At the time I was frustrated, not because I was a Mariners fan; though they did seem to attract greatness (a la Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johson), but mostly because I didn’t want A-Rod to sell out.

In 2009 we learned that A-Rod did more than sell out in Texas. During a time when it was likely uncool to not be taking performance enhancing drugs, A-Rod joined the fraternity of those who did. For me, this only added to downward spiral of him going to the Yankees and changing positions.

Through all the controversy since 2009 it’s a fact that A-Rod’s 3,000th hit means much less than the other 28 members of the club. I know I didn’t care when I heard about it, even though his 3,000th was a home run. It doesn’t seem to matter to me anymore because we can basically discount the 2001-2003 seasons on his stats.

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A-Rod was the youngest player to ever reach 300 home runs and before we knew they were enhanced home runs he was destined to become the greatest home run hitter of all time. But here we are 12 years later and the Yankees haven’t even paid him his $6 million bonus for reaching 660 home runs because of his PED ties. His own team discounts his accomplishments, so why should we care? The truth is, we don’t.

There is little A-Rod can do to regain his reputation. Baseball from the 90’s and early 2000’s has a black eye that may take generations to heal. It’s been nearly 30 years since the Pete Rose scandal and there seems to be no end in sight.

Will A-Rod ever make it into the hall of fame? From a statistical standpoint it would be blasphemy to no include him, and according to the commissioner he’s a player in good standing who has done his time. Yet most hall of fame players wouldn’t have heard national crickets when they struck their 3,000th hit. And crickets we heard last Friday.

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Photo: Flickr/Arturo Pardavila III