#600: More than Just a Milestone

With a Flick and a Shrug, A-Rod Becomes Youngest Member of 600-Club

There must have been a few sighs of disappointment mixed in the with the cheers, the applause, and the chanting when Alex Rodriguez's historic home run landed in the center field netting yesterday afternoon.  You know there was at least one person in the bleachers with lofty dreams of sitting between Cameron and A-Rod at some swanky restaurant on 5th Avenue.  But when that ball landed in no-fan's-land above monument park, that fantasy instantly vanished.

Instead, 23-year old security guard Frankie Babilonia was given an autographed bat for his ball retrieval efforts.  Way to toss the dog a bone, Yankee Stadium.  At least let the kid have a ball and jersey out of the deal, too.  If that we're me, I would have demanded a one-on-one date with Cameron Diaz, if not "mistress-rights" to her person for the rest of her life.  Wait, did I write that out loud?

Aside from the lunch date that never was, the home run itself was rather anticlimactic.  I wasn't expecting it at all, personally, and it didn't seem like A-Rod was either.  It was one of those typical A-Rod "flick" shots, where he just sort of snapped his wrists and threw the bat head out there.  For most other guys, that's a 375-foot fly ball out.  But for Alex and his massive forearms, it's a 420-foot home run to dead center, one that made him the youngest player to reach the 600-homer plateau at 35 years, 8 days young.  What now, George Herman?  Don't get complacent, Bonds.  You're next.

So he shrugged at his teammates as he rounded first, touched the rest of 'em, hugged his boyfriend at home plate--by the way, the Jeter is now the only player in history to be on base for a 500th and a 600th home run, both A-Rod's--took a curtain call, some more hugs, and then proceeded to ground out, pop up, and ground out again.  Glad to see your newly acquired membership hasn't changed you, A-Bomb.

Seriously though, I feel that with this mental obstacle out of the way, Rodriguez can focus on just reacting to the ball and letting his hands fly.  And that goes double for the rest of the team.  Over the recent years, it seems that whenever A-Rod goes into brain lockdown mode, milestone-induced or otherwise, the rest of the lineup gets sucked in as well.  No one on the squad has been hitting well of late, save for Mark Teixeira (he just loves making those late appearances, huh?) and Nick Swisher, who might be finally starting to taper off here in August after an outstanding 4-month stretch.

Teixeira provided the rest of the offense in this game, swatting a double to score Jeter in the third and a bases-loaded single in the fifth for two more.  The captain went 4-4 with three runs scored.  It was his first four-hit game of the season, and he hadn't accomplished the feat since July 10th of last year.  And he bunted for a hit!  Surely he was going for the sacrifice with Gardener on second base, but maybe DJ will take the hint from that and start going to the plate with a better, more dynamic approach.  He simply hasn't been having good approaches to his at-bats this year.  Maybe his man's 600th will get his head out of the doldrums.  Now if only Curtis Granderson would do something.