REMEMBER the night last summer when Pedro Martinez walked back to the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park and the overwhelming majority of Red Sox fans stood and applauded an saluted him? Remember the Sunday afternoon in 1977 when Tom Seaver returned to Shea Stadium as a Met, and they almost toppled the ballpark’s foundation welcoming him home? Remember the strands of “Ed-die … Ed-die” that still lurk in the rafters at the Garden, after Eddie Giacomin returned in a Red Wings jersey to play the Rangers?
OK …
Now think about what it will look like, and sound like, and feel like next April or May or June if Alex Rodriguez steps to home plate for the first time wearing the uniform of the Angels or Red Sox or White Sox or Mets. Think about what it will look like and sound like and feel like if that homecoming comes next July, with A-Rod wearing a Dodgers uniform, or a Cubs uniform, and it’s in the All-Star Game. That would be just like those other New York homecomings.
Only exactly the opposite.
The fact is, there may never be an uglier welcome awaiting an athlete than the one that’s in store for Alex Rodriguez whenever it happens. New York sports fans don’t like it when athletes don’t embrace them (even if it takes a while for the fans to extend the bear-hug arms too, as was the case here). But they REALLY don’t like being scorned. Put the two together, and factor everything else that’s been in play with A-Rod from the moment his acquisition was announced on Valentine’s Day 2004 …
Well. It’s going to be something else, put it that way.
It’s going to be right up there with the way Denis Potvin was greeted at Madison Square Garden every time he stepped on the ice there after Feb. 25, 1979, the night Potvin broke Ulf Nilsson’s ankle. That obscene Potvin chant that still survives at the Garden is one of the great New York traditions of all time, given that we’ll soon be sneaking up on 29 years since the incident in question … and 20 years since Potvin’s retirement. And yet, given the nature of the character and the betrayal involved, would it surprise anyone if a similar chant involving A-Rod won’t still be working its way around the New Yankee Stadium when it celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2034?
It’s going to be right up there with the way John Rocker was greeted at Shea Stadium on the night of June 29, 2000, when he sprinted in from the left-field bullpen to a thick torrent of anger and bile from 46,998 people who still remembered the interesting things Rocker had said about New York and its residents in a magazine article six months earlier. Rocker threw a 1-2-3 eighth inning, left the mound to even louder derision, and soon enough crawled back under the rock from which he’d emerged.
It’s going to be right up there with what would have happened if Roger Clemens had been forced to pitch in either Game 3, Game 4 or Game 5 of the 2000 World Series, with the memory of his sawed-off bat maneuver still fresh in the memories of Mets fans, and with Clemens forced to hold a bat in a National League park. By the time Clemens did get that honor, two seasons later, it was still pretty angry inside Shea Stadium. Just not as angry. Which is probably just as well.
In truth, in Yankee lore, it may well be right up there with the night of July 30, 1990, the night that Fay Vincent suspended George Steinbrenner from baseball, the second such time Steinbrenner had been banished. The first time, 17 years earlier, had been a quiet, muted, almost hushed-over verdict. This time, as word started spreading throughout Yankee Stadium during a 6-2 win over the Tigers, the fans started to react, first with a standing ovation, later with a chant that Denis Potvin would surely have appreciated.
These are the kinds of stadium and arena reactions that are pure adrenaline, a purely visceral response, like the way Yankee Stadium reacted to every single one of Gary Sheffield’s at-bats this summer, the way Johnny Damon’s every move is shadowed with boos and contempt up at Fenway Park now.
We always hear that there is a thin line between love and hate, and if that’s true in real life, it is absolutely true in sports. Yankees fans had just allowed themselves to love Rodriguez, to accept him for what he is, which happens to be the greatest player of his generation, and also among the most star-crossed players of his generation. If he’d signed an extension, that love would surely have lingered for the rest of his career, no matter what fans say now.
But now?
Now, he will hear it. Maybe for the rest of his career. Certainly whenever the first day he returns is, whether in the regular season with an American League rival or at the All-Star Game next July, the announcement of his name will undoubtedly be met with a variety of contempt stadiums save for the select few. Bring your earplugs.
Mike Vaccaro’s e-mail address is michael.vaccaro@nypost.com. His book, “1941: The Greatest Year in Sports,” is available in bookstores.
VAC’S WHACKS
I have to admit, I was shocked when I saw Joe Girardi wearing Kevin Brown’s old number the other day. I would have figured all 27s would have been burned by now.
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You have to think that the most relieved man in New York on Friday, the day that both Joe Girardi and Joe Torre found gainful, full-time employment, was Willie Larry Randolph.
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Just when you thought nobody could have cost himself more money this year than Andruw Jones, along comes Mike Cameron getting slapped with 25 days just as the free-agent flea market is about to get underway.
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I’d like to know a good reason why the Mets wouldn’t take the $13 million they were contractually willing to pay Tom Glavine and give Old Man Schilling a call.