Last night, the Yankees did something they haven’t done since 1939:
The Yankees have played 16,218 games since their first season in 1903. Never have they hit more home runs than they did last night at Yankee Stadium. Seven players slugged a total of eight homers in a 16-3 rout of the Chicago White Sox, tying a club record set in 1939.
Babe Ruth was the career home run leader then. Hank Aaron was 5 years old. Barry Bonds came along much later. Alex Rodriguez may one day top them all, but he has to reach 500 first. And that pursuit has become excruciating.
Rodriguez flied out five times and is hitless in 17 at-bats since swatting his 499th career homer last Wednesday. The fans squealed whenever he batted last night, snapping photographs and hoping for history. They got history, just not the kind they expected.
“It’s not one of those games you play with dice,” Manager Joe Torre said. “This is real people out there. I’m sure if you polled everybody in baseball who didn’t see the game and saw eight home runs being hit, they would have guessed that Alex hit two or three of them. But that’s the game.”
More importantly, though, the Indians lost last night, as did the Red Sox, meaning that New York is three games back in the Wild Card race and seven games back in the AL East.
August 1st, 2007 at 1:41 pm
It is ironic though. Baltimore has been on a hot streak recently, so New York gained a game on Boston because of it, but at the same time, fell back as well when Baltimore took two of three from New York.