Apparently, the prospect of losing out on millions of dollars and eligibility for free agency convinced him to play by the rules.
JUPITER, Fla., March 22 — In the top of the first inning on a brilliantly sunny Wednesday afternoon, Alfonso Soriano stepped to the plate wearing a blue Washington Nationals jersey and a red Washington Nationals helmet, his first at-bat for his new team. More importantly, in the bottom of the inning, he grabbed a large, black baseball glove, one borrowed from a teammate, and ran to left field, seemingly ending the controversy that had defined the club’s spring.
Soriano, a second baseman who has never played a regular season game in the outfield, thus agreed to switch positions for the Nationals not only on Wednesday afternoon, but for the upcoming season. Yet what emerged after a day that began with Soriano saying he hadn’t decided what he would do and ended with him playing nine innings in left was a confusing tale in which the Nationals and Soriano differed on whether he had outright refused an order to play left field two days earlier.
Good for him.
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