Double shocker: Yankees beat the Blue Jays, and the "unmarketable" A-Rod is getting a special day!

A-Rod and CC hug it out after Alex's 3000th hit.

Well, that was a pretty exciting -- and exhausting -- day in Yankeeland! First, even I, the author of "The Redemption of A-Rod," was positively stunned when I heard that the Yankees were going to honor Alex Rodriguez with a special day for his 3000th hit. I don't seem to remember even Derek Jeter getting such a day for his own 3000th hit, so that makes this news even more amazing.

This is the most shocking turnaround in reputation since Santa asked Rudolph to guide the sleigh on Christmas Eve!

Brian Cashman claimed to the Daily News that it's "not a surprise" that the team would honor Rodriguez this way. Child, please. Talk about revisionist history!

Cashman also said (emphasis added):

“I think it certainly shows how far he’s come, how far we’ve come,” Cashman said. “Mistakes can happen, and you can move past it over time. What he has accomplished on the field is pretty special. You can’t argue with the amount of hits he’s put together over the course of his career. It’s an amazing accomplishment.”

My jaw is on the floor, it has dropped so far! "You can't argue with the amount of hits" A-Rod has put together? Um, the Yankees *did* argue just that when they refused to pay him $6 million for him reaching the 660-homer milestone! Or are we in some alternate universe where homers don't count as hits?

And even I am flabbergasted that Cashman would describe repeated PED use as merely "mistakes."

The cynic in me initially thought that the A-Rod 3000-hit day is just meant to sell tickets and garner buzz on the first NFL Sunday of the year. But it is before a critical game against the Blue Jays, so that should be worth selling tickets on its own.

At any rate, the very idea that this day could be meant to sell tickets and create buzz belies the notion that Rodriguez is unmarketable. I can't see how the Yankees can refuse to pay A-Rod's next home run milestone after marketing this.

When I was at the Yankees-Red Sox game on August 4, they showed clips of Alex's 500th and 600th homers, which were on that same day. I also noticed when I was at the ballpark Thursday night for an NYCFC soccer game (more on that in a future Squawk!) how many photos of Rodriguez are in the luxury suite area, something that I doubt was the case last year or even at the beginning of the season!

Did the team simply finally wake up and notice that Alex is their most popular player by far these days?  Or is there some behind-the-scenes story that we don't know about? Is this day a quid pro quo in exchange for A-Rod's charitable settlement with the team over the milestone money?

It just goes to show how quickly a person's reputation can change! We see people's reputation sink very quickly (Bill Cosby, I'm looking at you) but we don't often see somebody have their reputation rehabilitated so quickly!

* * *

A shot of my TV screen after Miller got the save.

Last night's game was gut-wrenching, but ultimately satisfying. It was the most important win of the year, and felt like a playoff game!

We finally got to see the clutch Carlos Beltran -- the one who had such great postseason numbers with the Astros -- step up, with that awesome pinch-hit home run! It is is best moment as a Yankee, by far, so far.

And I am still emotionally exhausted from that epic 12 pitch at-bat between Troy Tulowitzki and Andrew Miller. Given how shaky Miller has been looking as of late -- and last night -- I didn't think that was going to end well.Miller Time didn't look to go down easy at first. But they still won. Whew!

Now the Yankees are back in first place, where they belong. Let's hope they can stay there today!