If Joe Girardi can tolerate a few more days of Alex Rodriguez dramatics, he will insert the retiring Yankee into the lineup Tuesday night in Boston when the Yankees start a three-game series against the Red Sox.
And then let the Fenway Park crowd take it from there. No one expects any tributes to be forthcoming.
“I think it’ll be nasty, just people booing,’’ longtime Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy said Monday. “I don’t think they’ll be appreciation. He’s a pariah here, they’re very territorial here. It’s not going to be anything like Mariano [Rivera] or {Derek] Jeter.”
Jeter and Rivera both were celebrated by the Fenway crowd, as was the case with crowds across MLB, in the years they retired.
“I don’t think we’ll see bygones be bygones,” Shaughnessy said. “I think it’ll be harsh. I don’t know that the Sox are going to acknowledge anything. Personally, I think it would be a mistake. I like Alex. I just don’t think he’ll get any love here.’’
The complete opposite reaction is likely when retiring Red Sox slugger [and Yankee killer] David Ortiz plays in Yankee Stadium for the last time next month.
“There’s something about David,’’ Shaughnessy said. “Noting sticks to David. It’s all good. It’s always amazed me, the treatment in New York. They don’t even pitch him inside. It’s like they’re delivering meatballs to him on a platter for 15 years and enjoying the beating they take so I’ve never understood that.’’
Rodriguez gets no such free pass from Red Sox Nation.
The fans still remember him slapping the ball from the glove of pitcher Bronson Arroyo in 2004 and fisticuffs with Jason Varitek in 2012.
And, of course, the substance abuse allegations.
“They think he’s a cheater and they think that his gains are not deserved and they invalidate everything,’’ Shaughnessy said. “And he never played for them and now they’re glad.”
..... - Newsday