Thoughts on A-Rod vs. Jeter, the music at Yankee Stadium, and the ballhog dude

Team-first captain Derek Jeter (r.) with Christian Lopez

I had a few other thoughts about Friday night's game, in which I got to see Alex Rodriguez hit #3000.

Here is a link to Alex's post-game presser. He really seems as relaxed as I can ever remember him. But he is wearing a simple light blue button-down shirt. Doesn't he know that when you hit 3000, you are supposed to wear a hat and shirt with a logo featuring an image of yourself and your achievement? That is what a team-first guy like Derek Jeter did after getting his 3000th hit!

Jeter, of course, had Christian (Sap) Lopez willing to give up the HR ball for a few trinkets. On the other hand, A-Rod is being shaken down by D-lister and professional ball hog Zack Hample, who said earlier this week that he would give Alex a dummy ball back if he happened to catch #3000. What class, what integrity!

Look, I think that if you catch such a momentous ball, you ought to be fairly compensated for it, with real money. That being said, Hample sounds like a real jerk. It was charming when he was a teenager going around catching balls. But he is 37 now, and I find it a little sad. (Then again, I am 48 and got so excited when I met Mr. Met that I gave him a hug!)  IMHO, you need to leave the glove at home when attending games once you graduate high school.

Hample brags about having snagged 8,000 balls. Reportedly, he has also knocked down little kids to do so. He denies it, but there are way too many witnesses who saw him do such things to believe him.

Anyhow, I also noticed that Michael Kay made a big deal about how the Detroit players did not go on the field to celebrate A-Rod, the way Tampa Bay players did with Jeter. I think this is much ado about nothing. But I don't remember Yankee players doing this post-game tribute to their captain that CC Sabathia arranged for Rodriguez:

Upon arriving in the clubhouse after the game, Rodriguez found a few dozen champagne glasses set up for a toast, courtesy of a six-liter bottle of Armand de Brignac “Ace of Spades” purchased by CC Sabathia to celebrate A-Rod’s milestone. “I completely broke down,” A-Rod told the Daily News before he left the ballpark. “I was not expecting that at all. It was amazing; overwhelming.”

That stuff is pretty pricey -- I think it's at least $6,500 for one bottle, if not more! I will be lucky if somebody opens up a bottle of Ripple (Fred Sanford's favorite drink!) to toast my being in the Washington Post!

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I noticed that the music played Friday when the Yankees came on the field was "Pour Some Sugar on Me," by Def Leppard. But where is the stripper pole? That is what I associate that song with! That and getting ready to go out to college parties. "Pour Some Sugar on Me" was the primping and preening song we used to play. At any rate, I don't associate it with baseball!

Also, I noticed that after A-Rod hit #3000, the Stadium played Eminem's "Lose Yourself." I kvelled over this! My Facebook friends know that I was very angsty after getting the opportunity to write for the Washington Post. That song was pretty much how I felt, with lyrics like this:

Look, if you had, one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted.
In one moment
Would you capture it, or just let it slip? 

So to hear it played after AROD3K was just too much! Amazing!