Wednesday, May 30, 2007

"Hah!"

I read where A-Rod said he'd only shouted, "Hah!" when seemingly disrupting the concentration of the right side of the Blue Jays infield on the dropped pop up. Manager John Gibbons commented that the Yankees have always played the right way and that A-Rod's move was bush league, rather than an example of Yankee Pride. He's right.

A-Rod pulls these kind of unnecessary stunts on occasion. Think back to the now famous glove slap against Bronson Arroyo if you doubt it. It's bush league and it's not the right way to play the game.

That said, the Jays are getting all fired up about it without ever admitting their own shortcomings in botching the play. Even if A-Rod shouted, "INCOMING!!!" you should probably make the catch as a professional ballplayer. Dropping that ball is simply a lack of focus and concentration. It wasn't the right thing to do, but dropping the ball is as much on the Jays as it is on A-Rod. If he'd shouted, "I got it!" then you'd have a better case. Since it seems he did not shout anything of the sort, we can chalk it up as a bush play by A-Rod and a poor defensive showing by the Blue Jays. I'd recommend that the Bombers wear kevlar body armor when the two teams meet again. It will surely get ugly.

4 comments:

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Gotta disagree with you this time Mike. Trying to distract the opposition is as old as baseball itself. I don't see this as any different than the old "hidden ball" or any of the phony pretend you missed it stuff to try to catch a runner off the bases. I say heads up play by Arod. Kudos to him.

RollingWave said...

I think it gets overblown, and honestly, in times like this it's nice to see them at least doing wahtever it takes to win

Unknown said...

Gotta laugh at the Gibbons comment "it's not the Yankee way"...

So John, which is it - are you annoyed that your rookie thirdbaseman got fooled by one of the oldest tricks in the game or are you actually upset that the Yankees didn't play up to some unwritten standard you have in your head?

Please. Like countless of other people have mentioned, if someone else pulls this off, it's viewed in a completely different light. Because it's A-Rod and the Yankees, all of a sudden it's 'bush league'?

I think we won our titles in the 90's because of a certain attitude & gamesmanship, but it's become obvious that this same attitude is causing us to be pushed around by the likes of Boston, LA, and even Tampa Bay on occasion.

It's time to lower ourselves a little to the rest of the league, folks. If no one else has a problem throwing at people and executing these types of plays, then neither should we.

It's time to get a little dirty, and start having some fun again. Forget the 'Yankee way' if it's going to get us constantly thrown at & shoved around in the field.

I'd rather win a championship and have people say we played 'dirty' than be the most professional team in the world and finish dead last. It just doesn't pay off in the end.

Not since 2004, anyway.