There's been some controversy regarding a play in Toronto earlier this week, where Alex Rodriguez from the Yankees reportedly yelled - something - as he was rounding second behind a Toronto infielder lining up to catch an infield pop-up. Jays say he yelled "Mine!", so the fielder backed off thinking it was his teammate coming in to make the catch. A-Rod claims he just yelled "Hah!", hoping it would distract the fielder.
Either way, the ruse worked and the ball dropped for an infield hit and ultimately, a couple of runs. Opinions around baseball are split on if A-Rod broke the "unwritten rules" of baseball, or if he was just pushing the edge. He himself admitted they were playing desperately.
I find the idea of the play pretty Bush League, as the Jays manager called it, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it absolutely shouldn't have happened... I gotta think it's not beyond what a desperate team would do. (And let's face it, we can happily label the Yanks as a "desperate" team for the time being.)
But the arguments all miss the point of why this upsets me. I am angry that A-Rod would resort to this tactic, sure, but I don't really blame him for it.
But, what really pisses me off at him is that I strongly believed he lied about it afterwards... and that's pretty pathetic. Unfortunately it appears the clip has been pulled at the request of MLB so I can't link it here, but there was a clip on YouTube showing the play with a close-up on A-Rod, and even very limited lip-reading abilities make it seem pretty clear he said "mine", not "hah". Mmmmmm-i-nnnnnne. The consonants were pretty easy to pick out! But I can't back it up here now with the clip removed so just call it my strong opinion.
So if he said "Mine", why cover up by claiming to have just made some random verbalization? That's what's so amazingly sad about this guy. He'll "cheat"... even if within the "unwritten rules", but then just try to cover it up rather than just owning up to an attempt to gain an advantage by Any Means Necessary.
What a loser.
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