From Jim Margalus of the Timesunion.com blog -
I’d be interested to know how much film (or megabytes of memory card space) has been consumed by non-eventful at-bats during Alex Rodriguez’s pursuit of his 500th home run. After tonight’s game, it’s been 28 at-bats since he hit No. 499.
The delay has created a rift of sorts. During each of his at-bats, fans rose to their feet, applaused, whistled, cheered and chanted. After each failure (and on the subway ride back to Manhattan), I heard heard a number of conversations among frustrated Yankees fans griping about Rodriguez’s inability to handle pressure, to put it nicely.
Then again, it’d be unwise to expect anything but conflict and contradiction when it comes to the relationship between Rodriguez and Yankees fans. It seems like they find it hard to root for the person, but easy to root for his production. All I know is that if the Yankees don’t want him, there are about 29 others teams that could use his services.
This made me curious. Are you “frustrated” and feel that A-Rod has an “inability to handle pressure”? Do you find it “hard to root for the person, but easy to root for his production”?
7 Responses to “Yankees Fans Torn On A-Rod?”
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August 4th, 2007 at 8:45 am
I’ll take A-Rod on my team any time, any day. He has carried the Yankees for long stretches this season at a time when others struggled. I cannot claim he performs at his best under key stress moments, but the same holds true for nearly every player not named Jeter. A-Rod is the guy who gets the Yankees to October. If someone else needs to step up then to finish the job, so be it. I shudder to think what this team would be like over the course of the regular season without A-Rod. No one doubts he’ll get to 500 home runs and beyond in the near future.
August 4th, 2007 at 8:51 am
This is ridiculous; there’s a huge difference between pressing to come through in the clutch and pressing to hit a milestone home run. How quickly Yankees fans forgot A-Rod’s 9th inning production this year. Alex’s 3 for 8, 2 RBI last two games isn’t exactly alarming.
How pathetic that the Yankees fans who could do nothing but verbally fellate A-Rod for the last four months have quickly turned on THE reason we aren’t 15 games out right now.
August 4th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Not frustrated at all nor do I think it’s an inability to handle pressure.
To me the “500th” is artificial and as long as he’s helping the team win games he’s doing his job. It’s probably screwing up traffic this weekend since fans are staying longer in case of another Arod at bat.
I hope his 500th is an inside the park job, that’ll tick off the fans and Sterling.
What about you Steve, are you “frustrated” or do you think Arod “has an inability to handle pressure”? A simple yes or no would suffice for each question you posed.
August 4th, 2007 at 11:46 am
I root for the performance and not the player for virtually every major leaguer who plays on the Yankees. Why should we root for them as people? If we actually knew them, I’m sure that almost all major league stars are self-absorbed and rather dull prima donnas — the kind of people whom one would not like in everyday life.
August 4th, 2007 at 11:59 am
It’s ridiculous that fans should get frustrated over this (disappointed, fine, but not frustrated). Like Harry said, pressure in achieving a personal goal is different than pressure in coming through in the clutch. Bonds is going through the same thing.
I got the feeling that people were more frustrated with him not getting any hits at all than with him not hitting a home run. But when Alex finally broke his hitless streak we were quite happy for him. When he had his sac fly last night, several people said the proverbial “hey, it’s a run.” As long as he’s swinging the bat well, I really don’t care when he hits it (as long as it’s not today because it’s the only day this week I won’t be there. Which of course means that he will hit it today:-)
August 4th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
These sorts of stories, and sorry Steve – some of the postings here as well, remind me of that scene in the movie The American President where Annette Benning asks Michael Douglas how he can stand by and not go after Richard Dreyfuss, asking how he can “have patience for people who claim they love America, but clearly can’t stand Americans?”
I feel this way about the slice of Yankee fans that don’t like A-Rod. How can you say you love the Yankees but clearly can’t stand their best player.
By the way – he hit 500 as I was writing this so those people on the subway can STFU.
August 4th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
~~~What about you Steve, are you “frustrated” or do you think Arod “has an inability to handle pressure”? A simple yes or no would suffice for each question you posed.~~~
“frustrated”? Tired, maybe. It was somewhat annoying that the story of waiting on 500 was on the front burner while the story on the team was shoved to the back.
“do you think Arod has an inability to handle pressure”? No question there. I think we’ve seen enough to show that, when the spotlight is on, and the most important times, he will fail more times than not – just like most players.