(above : a post-HR Rodriguez, taking time to light up before changing back into pinstripes and starting the most leisurely of jogs)
Be it a slow news day or an afternoon in which the Devils begin a coaching search and Big Ben vows to change his dickish ways, there’s never an unwelcome occasion around these parts for a negative reference to Yankees 3B Alex Rodriguez. In Monday’s Wall Street Journal, David Biderman reports it takes The Centaur Of All Attention a tortoise-like 24.94 seconds to complete his home run trot (or should we say, “power-walk”?) compared to teammate/universally-beloved SS Derek Jeter, who clocks in at just above 20 seconds.
To determine which Yankees are the slowest to circle the bases during their home-run trots, Take a Number clocked how long every 2009 home run took. The average for current Yankee starters with at least 10 home runs last year is 22.1 seconds”all of Mr. Rodriguez’s home-run trots were slower than that.
The average home-run time in the majors is 21.89 seconds, according to Marquette University data coordinator Larry Granillo. As a team, the Yankees are the 12th-fastest, edging the Mets by two-tenths of a second.
If you wanna put Rodriguez’ strolls into historical perspective, his average trip around the bases is just as long as those of this notorious styler and profiler.
I guess we should all be thankful that Rodriguez doesn’t go around the bases one flap down.
What?……….You guys can’t find anything else to write about this guy? I don’t care how long it takes him to go around the bases. The guy has behaved himself and played great baseball for the Yankees, especially last year when they won it all. The Yankees needed a manager like Girardi to bring out the best in players and that is what he does. Alex Rodriguez is a team player for the Yankees and it shows. All the jock sniffers try and find something wrong with players they don’t like. There are plenty of players whom I might not care for personally but I would never denigrate them so as to cast doubts on their ability. If you are good, then so be it. You can’t take that away from these guys. They are human beings and we need to remember that.
What do you want him to do, sprint around the bases, and come flying into home headfirst? You know anti-Yankee paranoia is in full swing when their home run trot times generate controversy. By the way hasn’t antone noticed the division front-runners are a bit further south theses days? Or is there a possible conspiracy theory brewing since the Yanks train in the Tampa Bay area?
I don’t know if A-Rod’s time around the bases is actually “controversial”, Carmel, and I’ll admit, it’s a bit of a wild stretch to suggest his relaxed approach is in keeping with the Third Baseman’s chronic look-at-me m.o. It’s a somewhat unfair thing to pick on Alex for. Unlike, for instance, this photograph, which is totally fucking ridiculous
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/gallery/enlargePhoto?id=5138218&story=5138248
As far as Paulee’s claim that A-Fraud “has behaved himself”, absolutely. He’s behaved flawlessly, if you consider philandering, gambling, using PED’s (and lying about it), and screaming at opposing infielders trying to catch routine pop-ups. “Cast doubts on their ability”? No one (around here, anyway) is denying Rodriguez isn’t an exceptional talent. The numbers alone say he’s one of the greatest of all-time. But his integrity will be mocked long after he’s retired, ’09 championship or not.
I honestly can’t believe that this is an article. GC, Babe Ruth wasn’t a philanderer and a gambler? Going to talk about him, too?
He’s cleaned up his selfish acts beyond measures. I think it’s ridiculous that this article exists right now. If you’re going to knitpick the Yankees, make it worth publishing. This is horrible.
“Babe Ruth wasn’t a philanderer and a gambler? Going to talk about him, too?”
It depends. If some moron writes in and seriously claims Babe Ruth “behaved himself”, yeah, it would make sense to contradict them.
As far as having “cleaned up his selfish acts beyond measure”, which acts are you referring to? In retrospect, giving opposing players hints about pitch locations is the very opposite of selfish, so you might say A-Rod’s been thoroughly unselfish for many years.
Seriously, what’s next? Are you going to time how long it takes the average baseball player to perform a bowel movement?
I wonder if this article would ever be written if A-Rod still played with the Mariners. Still bleeding? Go to the bathroom when he hits a homer. He is bound to hit more.
are you kidding me, how long did it take biderman to write this article, come on biderman you work all day on this dribble, can we get any more petty. Well I guess if you’re a hater, you’re a hater, find anything to hang your hat on david. Take away granderson (since he was a tiger last year) the 6 remaining 2009 ‘Yankees’ on this list average home run trot is 22.5 seconds, or 2.4 seconds difference. Since the distance from home plate back to home plate is 360 feet, Arod covers 14.45 feet per second while the avg for the yankees is 16 feet, that means that as the average yankee crosses the plate, Arod is 34.7 feet from home plate at the same time or about 1/3 of the distance from 3rd to home.
But of course you didnt take into account height, mass and metabolism in these numbers either. Arod is the largest of these athletes and naturaly has a slower gate since he has a longer glide, and i’ll guarantee you swisher and jeter’s metabolism is amped up compared to Arod.
But David since we’re being trivial, lets take a look at your article, there are 206 words in your article, if it took you 8 hrs to write this (including research or did you send some of your male interns to do the research and find a 3 year old photo of Arod), thats 28,800 seconds or about 2.33 seconds per word.
Yup you have Arod beat, it takes Arod .16 seconds longer to trot around the bases than you to put one word of this petty dribble on the internet. Yup, Arod is definitely a D*bag. Way to go Biderman, you made my day!!!
Is it Yankee-paranoia that’s out of control or Yankee-fan oversensitivity? Biderman no doubt wrote that article for the WSJ knowing that a Yankee fan will read stats on Bomber bowel movements as long they show the Yanks are the lead leaders. You guys have to be the first fans I’ve ever heard of to defend A-Rod’s character. Numbers — no question. That the guy is a self-aggrandizing cock who humiliated his family for strippers? Babbles how Madonna is his soul mate? Lied to his team about PEDs? Say what you will, GC didn’t invent the name A-Fraud – his fellow Yankees did.
Ben