NO LOVE FOR A-ROD

Alex Rodriguez won’t win any popularity contests. After his battles with Major League baseball and the New York Yankees over performance enhancing drugs and a season-long suspension in 2014, his career and achievements are tarnished.

Rodriguez hit his 660^th career home run on Friday night in Boston, tying him for fourth place on the all-time list with Willie Mays. Accolades were hardly forthcoming. The Red Sox pretended the record-tying homer didn’t happen. And the Yankees flat-out said they would not pay A-Rod his $6 million bonus for hitting that 660^th homer.

This dispute turns on the language of the agreement with A-Rod. It’s a marketing deal, not a contract, the Yankees say, and they are not marketing this achievement. No T-shirts, no souvenirs, nothing. Sports marketing experts said the home-run ball, caught by a Red Sox fan, may have value only to Rodriguez but not to collectors. They’re as unimpressed as the Yankees.

“We have the right, but not the obligation to do something, and that’s it,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said of celebrating Rodriguez’s monumental blast with commemorative items.

Rodriguez can file a grievance through the players’ union, which has said it will support him, and an arbitrator would hear the dispute if no settlement can be reached regarding payment. The last thing Rodriguez needs is more protracted arguments that will only dredge up his past.

Even Mays reached out to congratulate Rodriguez, but the Yankees’ animus is deep-rooted.

Rodriguez had issued an apology to fans, MLB and the Yankees in February, offering his regrets for “the mistakes that led to my suspension” and for his reduced trustworthiness. The Yankees never wanted him back – not after the suspension and with ailing hips – but were on the hook for $61 million in salary over this season and the next two.

Apparently, they’re not interested in paying a penny more.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .