Thursday, February 26, 2009

A-Rod's Spring Training Debut: Sign of Things to Come?

First of all I just want to give a big shout-out to "The Flagrant Fan", for mentioning me on his blog and also for being the reason I love the game of baseball. Now on to your irregularly scheduled program...

"A-Rod hits homer in spring training debut". Those are the words used earlier in SI.com's story about his spring training debut. Hours later this is how the headline for basically the same story read: "A-Rod hits homer in debut, leaves in cousin's SUV". To me that seems to be an omen of things to come. No matter how he performs this year, the scandal will worm it's way in.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out this season. Yes, he did hit a two-run shot in this game, and he dealt with the boos, and the cat-calling; but let's be honest. No matter how packed a spring-training game can get, it doesn't remotely compare to the crowd at a regular season game (unless you were playing in tampa bay before last year). He will deal with tens of thousands of fans in rival cities then, all playing off this scandal to try to get under his skin. Will he be able to handle it? He is, after all, a person that seems to always strive to be the best, the most loved, and it bothers him when he is not.

As a fan of the game I hope that he does well. Even if it was a PR move to actually fess up, at least he did, which is a lot more than others have done.

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