September 28th vs. The Royals
With Robbie Cano-don’tcha-know’s grand salami in this game, the Yankees now have 5 players this season with 25+ homeruns. Here are the other teams with 5+ players with 25+ homers in the same season:
Year Lg Team Number Players Matching +----+--+---------------------------------+------+------------------------+ 2003 AL Boston Red Sox 6 Garciaparra/Ramirez/Millar/Varitek/Nixon/Ortiz 2005 AL Texas Rangers 5 Teixeira/Blalock/Soriano/Mench/Dellucci 2002 AL Chicago White Sox 5 Ordonez/Konerko/Thomas/Lee/Valentin 2000 AL Anaheim Angels 5 Vaughn/Glaus/Anderson/Salmon/Erstad 1997 NL Colorado Rockies 5 Castilla/Galarraga/Walker/Bichette/Burks 1996 AL Baltimore Orioles 5 Ripken/Palmeiro/Bonilla/Anderson/Hoiles 1977 AL Boston Red Sox 5 Rice/Hobson/Scott/Fisk/Yastrzemski 1956 NL Cincinnati Reds 5 Robinson/Bell/Post/Kluszewski/Bailey
If Jimmy Rollins gets super hot this last week of the season, the 2009 Phillies can also join this club – as Rollins has 21 taters…and Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, Chase Utley, and Raul Ibanez all have 25+ now.
If Johnny Damon can hit one more homerun this season, it would give the Yankees 6 players with 25+ homeruns this year. And, if Jorge Posada can hit 3 more homeruns this year, the Yankees will become the first team in baseball history with 7 players with 25+ homeruns in the same season.
By the way, none of the 8 teams to make this 5+/25+ list before the Yankees this year have managed to reach the World Series in the season they turned the trick.
In the meanstwhiles up in RSN the Bosux have dropped 6 of their last 8.
Just thought you’d like to know
how awesome was it what A-Rod did to Pena? Nothin like a little fun rookie hazing.
Corey wrote:
What did he do? I fell asleep and missed the game.
MJ wrote:
He had everyone in the dugout ignore Pena when he came in, so for about 10 seconds Pena was just sitting there taking his batting gloves off then everybody jumped and crowded around him. I love when teams do that, so funny.
When Pena hit the homer, everyone in the dugout started to go nuts. He quickly quieted everyone down and told them all to go to their seats and pretend like nothing happened for when Pena arrived in the dugout. When he went to put his helmet back he looked down the dugout to no response u could almost see his heart drop. Then Posada broke it and everyone went to congratulate him. Fun stuff. Goes to show ya A-Rod, despite what people say, is a leader.
@ Corey:Leader or clique former? A-Rod was a ring leader of the Latin players in Texas – so much so that, in 2003, Buck Showalter asked Alex to stop speaking Spanish in the clubhouse with these guys…
Just some food for thought…
@ Steve Lombardi:
Did you see it happen? All 30 somethin’ active players were involved…
Steve Lombardi wrote:
Not sure I see your point. First, Corey is using this anecdote as an example that A-Rod has some leadership qualities. After all, the other 25 or so guys in the dugout wouldn’t have played along if they weren’t interested in listening to Alex.
But even if Alex IS in a clique with only Latin players, who cares? Three years ago, A-Rod’s critics were saying he had no friends on the team other than the bullpen catcher (Borzello) and his personal caddy/first baseman (Mientkiewicz). Now that he’s got friends, it’s a clique of Spanish-speakers.
Further proof that to the A-Rod haters, it’s a sliding scale of offenses. He should just wear a bullseye on the back of his t-shirt that says “moving target.”
Also on the HR front… Tex needs a pair, and a few insurance RBI’s, to lock up 2/3′s of a triple crown. Hope Girardi let’s him get a bunch more AB’s.
#15 wrote:
I’m rooting for Alex to get two more HR and seven more RBI so he can make it 12 straight years of 30/100.
Corey wrote:
But, he organized it for Ramiro Pena, on his first career HR. Would he have also organized it for Joe McGillicuddy, on his first career HR, just as quickly?
Again, I’m just floating this out there – to offer that, MAYBE, there’s another side to it.
MJ wrote:
FWIW, Buck Showalter saw it as a problem in Texas in 2003. Not sure how Girardi would feel about it now…if, indeed, it is the case.
Here the video of the Pena thing, for those interested…
http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?content_id=6901319
Steve Lombardi wrote:
FWIW, I do personally think he would have.
Steve Lombardi wrote:
Let’s suppose for a moment that you’re right, then what? You do special things for your friends. If Alex considers Pena his friend, then he organized a prank on his friend and wouldn’t be expected to do the same to Joe McGillicuddy, who may not be his friend. It would be up to Joe McGillicuddy’s friend to do the same.
The mere fact that you raise this for Alex but not for any other player really speaks volumes to how Alex is never judged fairly. I’m mean, seriously, we’re now talking about how Alex organizing a prank on a teammate of Latin origin has some implicit meaning that maybe he’s not a full team player and only interacts with fellow Spanish-speakers.
Does anyone really care, even if that’s the case? Derek Jeter only talks to guys that won World Series rings with him (Rivera, Pettitte, Posada). Burnett seems to enjoy the company of guys that have tattoos (Bruney, Sabathia) and Swisher and Damon keep to the company of guys with ridiculous hairdos. Why aren’t we talking about that (tongue in cheek)?
Furthermore, If Buck Showalter had a problem with A-Rod speaking Spanish in the clubhouse, it might’ve done Buck good to take the whole team out for Spanish lessons or to take them all to a Spanish nightclub instead of making such a big deal out of it. Isn’t it worth noting that most people consider Showalter to be an unbearable personality? Maybe the Spanish-speaking Rangers players were talking about how much they hated playing for such a grouch all the time?
A-Rod’s an OK guy and it looks like a decent number of his teammates don’t hate him, as was the common canard among mainstream media types. It doesn’t appear that WW.com has gotten that memo yet, though.
@ YankCrank:
Awesome! Thanks for posting, I really enjoyed watching that.
If it were the case that it was only the Spanish speaking players in said clique, then wouldn’t only they participate in the prank?
On the subject of cliques I have often heard that Mariano Rivera is the leader of the Latin contigent on the Yankees. Before each game his locker is surrounded by a crowd of Hispanic players busily dicussing items of interest. I’ve also heard that this is not unusual; that every MLB team has such a Latin clique gathered about one or two leaders.
@EVERYONE:
Why do cliques even matter? Whether you believe in the concept of team chemistry or not, most observers would agree that the members of this team enjoy eachother’s company and that they have “chemistry” (whatever that means). If players further break down along racial, ethnic, or geographic lines, what difference does it make?
Tresh Fan wrote:
RELEASE HIM!