Kuzul

When New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez launched a home run into the seats at Yankee Stadium for his 3,000th career hit in June, it seemed as though he would never get the ball back, but the dynamic changed Friday, as the Yanks negotiated a deal with the fan who caught it.

According to the Yankees’ official Twitter account, Zack Hample, who is well-known for his pursuit of souvenir baseballs, has agreed to present A-Rod with the ball Friday in exchange for a $150,000 donation to the Pitch In for Baseball charity.

Hample will receive some additional nonmonetary compensation as well, per ESPN’s Darren Rovell:

The decision to give the ball to the 39-year-old designated hitter represents a significant change of heart of Hample’s part, as he initially planned to keep it:

Hample did concede that the ball might become available if he received an offer to his liking, though, according to ESPN.com:

I think that someone like Derek Jeter or Alex Rodriguez, who has made half a billion dollars in his career, doesn’t really need a favor from a normal civilian and a fan like me. I don’t know right now if I’m going to sell it. I mean, depending on what the Yankees could offer, I would consider giving it back. I’m not giving it back for—I don’t plan to give it back for a chance to meet him and full autographed bats because I don’t collect bats, I collect baseballs. Just having this ball is so meaningful to me. I can’t believe that I got it.

While Hample will ultimately benefit from the exchange, the fact that a charity is involved makes it a much more meaningful and fulfilling transaction than most probably expected.

Also, the Yankees’ decision to go to bat for A-Rod is significant because it wasn’t long ago that the two sides had an extremely tenuous relationship due to his year-long suspension for the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Things have changed this season, as Rodriguez has carried himself in an ideal manner, and he has also produced on the field to the tune of a .280 batting average, 15 home runs and 45 RBI for the AL East-leading Bronx Bombers.

A-Rod’s reputation remains tarnished as far as the sport of baseball is concerned, but this gesture suggests that he is once again back in the Big Apple’s good graces. 

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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For the likes of Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Martinez, the question is not whether they’ll be starting in the 2015 MLB All-Star Game, but whether they’ll even be taking part in the exhibition.

With the Midsummer Classic rapidly approaching, A-Rod and Martinez are just two of a slew of first-half standouts who look like they’ll be left on the outside looking in when the American League and National League rosters are announced.

The players who populate the All-Snub team fall into two general groups. The first are major leaguers who have been performing at a high level but have relatively low profiles around the game. The second group are players who have been on fire in the first half but play a position that just so happens to be loaded with All-Star candidates.

It’s no consolation to the players who make this squad, but the All-Snub team looks like an All-Star club itself.

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Houston Astros pitcher Brett Oberholtzer got rocked by the New York Yankees on Saturday, allowing a grand slam to catcher Brian McCann and a two-run dinger to outfielder Chris Young.

Having allowed six runs and still not out of the second inning, the lefty was frustrated. So he took his anger out on Alex Rodriguez by throwing a fastball at his midsection.

Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia was having none of that, though, as the big fella had to be held back by manager Joe Girardi.

After the Yankees won, 9-6, Girardi was candid about the near-scuffle, per Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle:

If you thought McCann and Young beat up on Oberholtzer, just imagine what Sabathia would’ve done.

The left-handed pitcher won’t have to worry about that in Triple-A, though:

[MLB.com]

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1. Warning: Unwritten Rules Ahead

Jose Tabata, villain for either (a) leaning into or (b) not getting out of the way of a hanging slider and ruining Max Scherzer’s perfect game?

Or the latest victim of the Internet rushing to a speedy and unfair judgment?

Here’s the thing about Tabata, as opposed to the horde that instantly condemned him online in the hours after Scherzer’s pitch went plunk! and a historic perfect game went splat!: He had a split-second to react. Everyone else had time to fix a sandwich, grab a fistful of Cheez-Its, rewind the video a few dozen times and chew on the play from a dozen different angles.

The best reaction I saw all weekend came from a pitcher, who, surprise, surprise, actually was siding with the hitter:

That was my initial reaction watching the play, and it was still my reaction after rerunning it half-a-dozen times.

Tabata looked like a hitter staying in against the slider, expecting it to break. He moved with the pitch and, when it didn’t break, yes, his elbow had dropped a couple of inches, and, no, he didn’t back away.

Why? Because Scherzer’s slider had been so precise all afternoon. Time after time, Pirates hitters saw that slider come in and then break, and they looked like slow men chasing a fly with a fly swatter.

Tabata had battled his rear end off in that plate appearance, by the way. If you listened to a large part of the social media narrative afterward, he sounded like a man who went to the plate looking to get hit by a pitch.

Wrong. It was an eight-pitch at-bat, during which Tabata fouled off five Scherzer offerings. He put up one heck of a fight.

Yet when Scherzer hit him, on the Nationals broadcast, analyst and former infielder F.P. Santangelo said, “That is just the worst way ever to lose a [perfect game]. Are you kidding me?”

Agreed, it was a wholly unsatisfying moment given the mounting drama.

But perfect games are extraordinarily difficult, which is why there have been only 23 of them completed in more than 100 years of baseball.

Have we been so conditioned in our instant gratification, politically correct, everyone-goes-home-with-an-orange-slice world that when a pitcher is on the verge of history, hitters should go into politeness mode and not dare to do anything to offend? Just roll over and take it?

Horseradish. You keep playing, and whatever happens, happens. Say what you will, but Tabata did not dive into the pitch. Which, incidentally, is why plate umpire Mike Muchlinski was correct as well. Some blamed him for not stepping in and disallowing the hit-by-pitch when it simply was not as egregious and obvious as so many were willing it to be.

“I wanted to get a hit,” Tabata told reporters in a Spanish-language interview the next day. “People don’t understand that those were the instincts people have. I wasn’t looking to get hit. I wanted to get a hit. I wanted to get on base.”

Meantime, no surprise that Scherzer, as classy a player as there is in the game, told multiple outlets afterward that he held no ill will toward Tabata.

“It was a slider that was in,” he told MLB Network Radio’s Jeff Joyce. “I kind of lost a little control over it. It backed up on me. I have no qualms about it whatever. That’s just baseball. He did what he needed to do. So kudos to him, actually.”

It reminded me of another controversial incident in May 2001, when the Padres’ Ben Davis bunted for a base hit when the Diamondbacks’ Curt Schilling was five outs from a perfect game.

Schilling and some of the D-backs were “a little stunned” at this breach of baseball etiquette. But it was May, the eighth inning of a 2-0 game and early enough in the season that the Padres were just one game out of first place in the NL West at the time.

“I guess they wanted us to drop our weapons and raise our hands,” then-Padres manager Bruce Bochy said. “We’re trying to win the ballgame and we got the tying run up to the plate. We almost won the ballgame.”

Baseball etiquette and the unwritten rules can get awfully confusing at times. But here is something that should never be confusing: Play the game, from start to finish.

It’s called integrity.

2. Royal All-Star Voting Crisis

So MLB canceled more than 60 million votes for fear of improper All-Star voting. Nevertheless, as one American League player who is not with Kansas City told me the other day, he continues rooting madly for the Royals to continue to dominate the vote.

Why?

To throw the system into complete chaos, the player said. Because, he said, he thinks everything about the All-Star voting process needs to be re-evaluated. 

The player is not alone, and as MLB continues to lurch toward what will wind up being a humiliating situation if seven or eight Royals are voted in as starters, the bottom line remains that MLB must decide once and for all what it wants from the game.

Should it be a meaningful contest that decides World Series home-field advantage?

Or should it be a midsummer carnival, an overall celebration of the game?

I lean toward the former. But that means the players, such as Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, should play seven or eight innings, many others won’t get to play and when players are removed, they should stay in the dugout and not go interact with fans on Twitter.

For the fans, it would be great theater.

For the players who spend their midsummer’s break traveling to the game and sitting on the bench, it would be a bummer.

As things stand, though, I don’t blame Kansas City fans for voting relentlessly. They’re just doing what baseball is telling them to do. Flipping through various games Sunday, I got to Cincinnati’s, and on the field is a logo that read “#VoteReds.” I got to Kansas City and saw a logo on the field reading “#VoteRoyals.” I got to Washington and saw a logo on the field reading, “#VoteNats.”

Over on MLB.com, I clicked on Arizona’s site and read “Help send the D-backs to the All-Star Game by going to MLB.com/Vote to put your stamp on the Midsummer Classic…”

I clicked on Philadelphia’s site, home of baseball’s worst team, and read, “Help get your Phillies into the NL All-Star starting lineup at Great American Ball Park…”

And so on.

Instead of urging fans to vote for the game’s best, each precinct is urging fans to vote for the hometown players.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that…if the All-Star Game is going to go the carnival route, celebrating everything about the game. But if the World Series is to remain attached to it, then baseball should be pushing for fans to vote for the best players, period.

So maybe while fans in Kansas City continue to vote feverishly, MLB can finally decide once and for all how to conduct the game.

3. Hacking: Cardinals Are Down but Not Out

No question, the alleged hacking into Houston’s Ground Zero computer system has tarnished the pristine reputation of the Cardinals.

The FBI and Department of Justice are investigating, and the Cardinals are conducting their own in-house investigation. Early indications are that owner Bill DeWitt Jr. and president/general manager John Mozeliak knew nothing about the hacking and that it was the work of some rogue, lower-level IT guys.

Based on what we know now, this is not something that is going to leave a permanent scar on the St. Louis organization.

Nevertheless, as you would expect, some folks are going way overboard. Like, way overboard. Like this Los Angeles columnist, who made the absolutely ludicrous connection between the hacking scandal and the Cardinals’ schooling of the Dodgers in each of the past two NL Championship Series.

Yup, just because St. Louis bludgeoned Clayton Kershaw and broke Hanley Ramirez’s ribs with a pitch, suddenly it is fair game to wonder if it did that by cheating, too.

“If the Cardinals would sneak into an opponent’s computer, which is a federal crime and far worse than deflating a few footballs, what else would they do to gain an edge?” Bill Plaschke wrote. “If they would cheat against a long-struggling team such as the Astros, why wouldn’t they cheat to beat the richest team in baseball and their Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw?”

Please. As the New York Times noted in the story that broke this thing wide-open, it has been believed all along that the hacking “Was executed by vengeful front-office employees for the Cardinals hoping to wreak havoc on the work of Jeff Luhnow, the Astros general manager, who had been a successful and polarizing executive with the Cardinals until 2011.”

Except for in the minds of wildly imaginative folks, there is zero evidence of on-field cheating by St. Louis.

4. He’ll Be Here All Night, Folks

Not to give injured Dodgers starter Brandon McCarthy too much love in one Starting 9 notebook, but I can’t resist pointing you toward a second tweet of his this week because it’s just so funny and perfect:

5. A-Rod and the Sounds of Silence

Hello darkness, my old friend…

Has there ever been a 3,000th hit ignored by so many? Alex Rodriguez smashing his 3,000th, a home run Friday night against Detroit’s Justin Verlander, might have been a big deal in the moment in Yankee Stadium.

Nationally, however, it probably was the least impactful 3,000th hit ever. And even in A-Rod’s subsequent at-bats that night, as B/R colleague Danny Knobler noted, “It may as well have been another day in August, for as little reaction as there was from the fans.”

The reaction from the New York tabloids was decidedly different. For your viewing pleasure:

6. Edgar to the Rescue in Seattle

So the weak-hitting Mariners followed the Yankees and Mets by firing their hitting coach over the weekend. The new guy is someone you might have heard of: Outside of Safeco Field, there is a street named after him, Edgar Martinez Way.

Inside of Safeco Field, there is a restaurant named after him, Edgar’s Cantina and Home Run Porch.

It will be very nice to have Martinez back in a Mariners uniform for all concerned. He is an all-time great who knows a few things about hitting.

He also is the sixth hitting coach in GM Jack Zduriencik’s seven years on the job. The Mariners have been an utter disappointment this season, and when they sacked Howard Johnson to name Martinez, their offense ranked last in the majors with a .233 batting average and last in the American League, averaging 3.36 runs per game.

7. Weekly Power Rankings

1. Max Scherzer: Has allowed just one hit over 18 innings in his past two starts, against the Pirates and Brewers, while striking out 26 and walking one. Can a guy be underpaid at $210 million?

2. Pete Rose: Poised to star in The Notebook II with Rachel McAdams and James Garner?

3. Astros passwords: Maybe CarlosCorreaRocks isn’t a good idea.

4. McDonald’s: Closing more restaurants than they’re opening in the United States this year for the first time since 1970. Sounds like the way the Phillies are going.

5. Giants manager Bruce Bochy stranded at Dodger Stadium: Team bus left thinking everyone was aboard. The skipper was forced to call a cab. The way the Giants have been pounding the Dodgers this year, Tommy Lasorda should have called Bochy a cab to get him off the Dodgers’ property.

8. The Angels and the 1 Percent

The most bizarre story last week was off the field, when Robert Alvarado, the Angels’ vice president of marketing and ticketing sales, resigned.

Speaking to the Orange County Register last month, he said the Angels were OK with a downturn in ticket sales in 2015 if they sell higher-priced tickets to higher-income fans. Alvarado told the newspaper:

We may not be reaching as many of the people on the lower end of the socioeconomic ladder, but those people, they may enjoy the game, but they pay less, and we’re not seeing the conversion on the per-caps. In doing so, the ticket price that we’re offering those people, it’s not like I can segregate them, because I’m offering it up to the public, and I’m basically downselling everybody else in order to accommodate them.

As far as ticket plans go, I’ve heard better.

9. Matt Harvey at 50

Fifty games, that is. The kid is just 26 but through his first 50 games, he ranks with some pretty heady company. Check out this from stats guru Bill Chuck:

9a. Rock ‘n’ Roll Lyric of the Week

Presumably, Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez are not under this “angels” umbrella, but James Taylor has released a new album featuring a song about the Red Sox, Angels of Fenway (and the reviews are brutal):

“We were living on a tear and a sigh

“In the shadow of the Bronx machine

“Man, you could feel it smolder

“The whole town had an attitude

“Then you’d get a little chip on your shoulder

“Say something that’s downright rude

“Oh, damn them Yankees

“Outspending everybody two to one

“Picking up on the cream of the crop

“Stealing everyone’s favorite son

“Angels of Fenway, hear our prayer

“We have been chastened

“We have been patient”

—James Taylor, Angels of Fenway

Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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Fact: Alex Rodriguez gets his 3,000th career hit, becomes the 29th member of the historic club.

Bleacher Report will be bringing sports fans the most interesting and engaging Cold Hard Fact of the day, presented by Coors Light.

Source: New York Yankees

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Alex Rodriguez homered for his 3,000th career hit against the Detroit Tigers on Friday night at Yankee Stadium off Justin Verlander. The New York Yankees slugger became just the 29th player in MLB history to reach that milestone.

Nonetheless, the 39-year-old’s name has been linked to performance-enhancing drugs, and the New York Post and Daily News reminded us of that.

Rodriguez has been painted as a villain coming into this season after serving a yearlong suspension due to PEDs. That said, his career numbers are some of the best of all time: 667 home runs (fourth), 2,004 RBI (third), 3,000 hits (tied for 28th) and 1,957 runs (eighth).

[Twitter]

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NEW YORK — Four years ago, it was easy to know what to think.

It was easy to know how to feel.

Derek Jeter got to 3,000 hits in the most Derek Jeter of ways, and it wasn’t just Yankees fans who celebrated. Even now, four years later, the pitcher who gave up Jeter’s 3,000th hit can talk about how “special” that day was.

“I still have no regrets,” David Price said Friday, just a couple of hours before the 28th member of the 3,000-hit club (Jeter) was joined by the 29th member (Alex Rodriguez).

He did it like Jeter did, with a home run off a great pitcher. But he did it nothing like Jeter did, because Alex Rodriguez never does anything that way.

It’s complicated with him. It’s always complicated with him, even on a night like Friday.

He’s done that to himself, but he’s also done it to all of us. He’s left us wondering what he could have been without the drugs, the suspension and the controversy, but he’s also kept us wondering who he really is.

“I’m not touching that,” Justin Verlander said, when asked to compare the Jeter and A-Rod emotions a few hours after he gave up A-Rod’s 3,000th.

He wasn’t, but across the Tigers clubhouse, Miguel Cabrera was. Cabrera was running the bases when the game ended, and when it did, he headed not to the Tigers’ third-base dugout but instead directly to Rodriguez, whom he grabbed in a big hug.

To those who would say A-Rod isn’t worthy of such love, Cabrera said later, “They don’t know him.”

And to those who believe that everyone in the game still hates A-Rod, this was the strongest of counterpoints.

Obviously, he’s no Jeter. Not everyone was celebrating Friday night. But obviously, he’s not universally viewed as a villain, either.

“Those numbers,” Cabrera said. “Only Hall of Famers do that—3,000 hits, 600 home runs, 2,000 RBI. That’s amazing.

“That’s amazing.”

Down the hall in the Yankees interview room, A-Rod was talking about the night with his usual planned-out thoughts. He brought up one of the biggest contrasts with the Jeter 3,000 game, which was that the guy who caught Jeter’s home run couldn’t wait to return it, while the guy who caught A-Rod’s homer at first refused to even negotiate with the Yankees on a return.

“The thing I was thinking about was where’s Jeet’s guy,” Rodriguez joked. “I wasn’t so lucky.”

The contrasts will always be there, no matter what. But the contrasts always come with contradictions for A-Rod.

The numbers were steroid-aided. We know that. But we also know that plenty of guys used steroids, and none of the others came up with these numbers.

The drugs and the lawsuits turn plenty of people off, in plenty of big league clubhouses (including, often, his own). But we also know that plenty of former and current Yankees tell friends what a great teammate Alex is.

We know there are players like Cabrera, who had no problem with showing him respect in the most public of ways.

“The thing that I’ll take away is that after the last out, Miguel Cabrera gives me a hug,” Rodriguez said. “Twenty years from now, that’s what I’ll think about. … Miggy is such a class act, and he’ll arguably go down as the greatest right-handed hitter of our generation.

“That was special for me.”

A-Rod could have gone down as the greatest right-handed hitter of his generation, or the greatest hitter, period. But it’s never that simple with him.

It wasn’t simple, not even Friday, not even on what should have been one of his best days.

He hit the first pitch he saw, a 95 mph Verlander fastball, three rows deep into the right-field seats. The Yankee Stadium fans rose in anticipation, and if they didn’t cheer him the way they cheered Jeter, they at least gave him an ovation worthy of 3,000.

When A-Rod came out for a curtain call, it didn’t feel forced. ESPN Stats & Info noted A-Rod’s accomplishment:

Four years ago, Jeter came into the game against Price needing two hits for 3,000. He got them in his first two at-bats and then added three more hits in a 5-4 Yankees win over the Rays.

The whole day felt like a celebration. Four years later, it still feels special, as Price said Friday.

Four minutes after A-Rod’s 3,000th, the moment already seemed to have passed. When he came to the plate for his next at-bat, it may as well have been another day in August, for as little reaction as there was from the fans.

They don’t hate him here. That’s obvious, even if many other fans in many other places still do.

But it’s not love, not unconditional love, not Jeter-like love, not at all.

It’s complicated with him. It always is, even after all these years.

Even after 3,000 hits.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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New York Yankees designated hitter Alex Rodriguez recorded the 3,000th hit of his career on a solo home run off of Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander in the first inning of Friday’s 7-2 win, joining Derek Jeter as the only players to reach the 3,000-hit mark in a Yankees uniform, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Surprisingly enough, Jeter’s milestone hit was a blast to deep left field, while Rodriguez reached 3,000 on an opposite-field homer over the short right field porch that Jeter so often took advantage of. It wasn’t a cheap home run by any means, but it also wasn’t an especially impressive one by Rodriguez’s lofty standards.

In addition to Jeter and Rodriguez, former Yankee Wade Boggs is the only other player to swat a home run for hit No. 3,000, although he did it in a Tampa Bay Devil Rays uniform, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Rodriguez is also just the second player to record his 3,000th hit off of a former Cy Young Award winner, joining another former Yankee, Dave Winfield, who accomplished the feat against Dennis Eckersley while playing for the Minnesota Twins in 1993, per Elias Sports Bureau (via ESPN Stats & Info).

It should come as no surprise that Rodriguez took Verlander deep, as the 39-year-old has an impressive track record of success against the 2011 American League Cy Young Award winner.

Even after Verlander retired Rodriguez in each of his next three trips to the plate Friday night, Rodriguez has 11 hits in 32 career at-bats (.343 batting average) against the right-hander, with five home runs and 10 RBI.

Now sitting at 667 career home runs, Rodriguez has homered for 22 percent of his 3,000 hits, tops among the 29 members of the 3,000-hit club, per the New York Times.

Hank Aaron’s 755 homers lead the club in that department, and while Rodriguez is enjoying a surprisingly excellent bounce-back season, he still needs 88 more long balls to catch Hammerin’ Hank.

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The lightening rod has struck again. And with that, his critics will surely strike back.

Alex Rodriguez woke up Saturday with 1,999 RBIs to his professional name. How he was aided in getting them—his immense offensive talent, his teammates being on base and, of course, the drugs—is irrelevant to the record books.

By the time he laid his manicured head on a Baltimore hotel pillow, A-Rod had taken down another milestone. His 666^th career home run produced RBI Nos. 2,000 and 2,001 on Saturday, making him just the second official major league player to, somewhat literally, have a ton of RBIs.

Alex Rodriguez becomes the 2nd player to reach 2,000 RBI since the stat became official in 1920. pic.twitter.com/6UJ4oRTvKY

— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) June 14, 2015

He trails only Henry Aaron’s 2,297 in the Major League Baseball hall of records since the game did not tally RBIs before 1920. Aaron holds the all-time unofficial record, with Babe Ruth (2,214), Cap Anson (2,075) and now the game’s all-time most controversial player as the only others in the club.

Career RBI leaders (since baseball actually was played before 1920): Hank Aaron 2297, Babe Ruth 2214, Cap Anson 2075, Alex Rodriguez 2001.

— Tyler Kepner (@TylerKepner) June 14, 2015

People will undoubtedly scoff at Rodriguez’s numbers. He brought that criticism on himself when he decided to tangle with performance-enhancing drugs only to be outed twice, the second squealing costing him all of the 2014 season.

His team, the New York Yankees, barely acknowledge his feats anymore because of all of it. One home run no more special the previous or the next, 2,000 RBIs no different than No. 1,999 except for the fact that they are helping keep the Yankees afloat in the thick American League East as Rodriguez vies for the league’s Comeback Player of the Year honor.

But just because the Yankees brass has decided not to honor, or pay, Rodriguez when he reaches certain milestones, it does not mean it is not special. Baseball loves its record book, and like it or not, A-Rod is all over it and in rarefied company.

Not Barry Bonds, not Lou Gehrig, not Stan Musial, not Ty Cobb or anybody else who has ever played the game aside from the others mentioned before have collected 2,000 RBIs. When a player is better than those men at anything that has to do with playing baseball, he should to be appreciated.

Rodriguez’s PED scandals have not just tarnished his reputation. In the eyes of many baseball players, executives, media members and fans, they have scribbled all over the hallowed record book with a brightly colored permanent marker, transforming a masterpiece into a joke.

Rodriguez is obviously not the only player to do so, but he is the best and most heavily scarred. He is the face of an era, in the most despised way possible.

Because of that, it is easy to ignore his greatness or simply brush it off as a product of synthetic [insert substance here]. It should not be that way.

While an RBI is not a great way to determine a player’s production or value, it still means something. And reaching a number that only three other magnificent offensive players before him have should not diminish the entirety of Rodriguez’s accomplishment.

The same can be said about his 600^th home run, or when he recently passed Willie Mays on the all-time home run list. It will hold true again next week when Rodriguez becomes the 29^th member of the 3,000-hit club.

People might not like how or what he used to get there, but the sheer impressiveness of the feats should not be lost on them, or anyone.

And that Rodriguez is this productive as he approaches his 40^th birthday is impressive as well. Considering the last time we saw him in the batter’s box before this season he was a mess, his 11 home runs and .883 OPS as the team’s No. 3 hitter are almost shocking.

7 of A-Rod’s 12 HR this year have either tied the game or given the Yankees the lead.

— Katie Sharp (@ktsharp) June 14, 2015

Then we remember that we are talking about maybe the most prolific hitter the game has ever employed, with or without the artificial flavoring.

In a society that loves to forgive its stars after it chastises them, there is none of it for A-Rod. He’s for too long attempted to fool baseball fans and lie about it. And in a game that is rooted in and sometimes defined by its history, that is something a player just can’t do, no matter how great he is or was.

As long as he remains healthy, Rodriguez will keep on knocking over milestones and climbing higher in the record book. Baseball and its fans will continue to despise him for it. It’s just how things works these days when it comes to Rodriguez.

Even if that is the case, though, his accomplishments should still be appreciated and celebrated.

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired first-hand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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Alex Rodriguez has crossed various statistical plateaus during the 2015 MLB season and added another achievement to the list Saturday night against the Baltimore Orioles.

The New York Yankees third baseman hit a two-run home run in the top of the sixth inning, which put him at 2,001 runs batted in over his illustrious career. Since the RBI became an officially recognized and recorded stat, only one other player in baseball history has eclipsed 2,000, per ESPN Stats & Info:

Rodriguez has been one of the Yankees’ best hitters this year, which is impressive considering he missed the entire 2014 season. His 11 home runs and .505 slugging percentage are second on the team, while he’s also third in batting average (.275) and RBI (30).

Looking to the future, Rodriguez could potentially pass Hank Aaron for first on the all-time RBI list, but the chances seem a little slim. Assuming he finishes with 80 or 90 RBI this year, the 39-year-old would still need a couple hundred more to move ahead of “Hammerin’ Hank.”

That’s a lot to ask of a player who turns 40 in July.

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