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Marc Malusis: Yankees should pay A-Rod his money when he hits home run No. 660 – Metro US
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Marc Malusis: Yankees should pay A-Rod his money when he hits home run No. 660

Marc Malusis: Yankees should pay A-Rod his money when he hits home run No.
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Just pay the man his money. When Alex Rodriguez hits his 660th home run, he is due a $6 million dollar bonus by the Yankees. It is a clause in his contract when he re-signed with the Yankees that when he ties Willie Mays for fourthplace on the all-time home run list, the bonus is his.

Of course the Yankees know a whole lot more now after Rodriguez re-signed with the them.He has been outed as a steroid user and suspended by Major League Baseball for a year. Now the Yankees don’t want to pay him. Wait, what?

Yes, since the Yankees can’t market the home runs and sell bats, balls, shirts and hoodies, they will not pay him. They can’t market him because the home run will not be a clean record. I get that.Nobody looks at his home runs and his prodigious offensive numbers the same way. He is a cheat and will always be recognized as a cheat. His records will not be viewed the same way that we view Mays, Mantle or even Babe Ruth. I am not here to say that we need to embrace and celebrated A-Rod. I am not here to say that we should celebrated his 660th home run, whenever that happens. I am here to say that the Yankees are wrong and need to pay the man.Buyer beware.

After A-Rod opted out, the Yankees gave him a 10-year,$275 million dollar contract. Nobody forced them to do it, they did it willingly and under their own volition. So here we are, sitting in 2015 and the Yankees are playing hardball with him. Why? Because they feel they were duped. First off, they should have known as an organization what they were buying back into. Secondly, if they did have an inkling that everything was not on the up and up with A-Rod but thought the juice was worth the squeeze and nobody would find out, then shame on them.

Anyway they cut it, the Yankees need to pay Alex Rodriguez all the money that he hascoming his way. Going into the Sunday night’s Subway Series rubbermatch, A-Rod was hitting .250 with fourhome runs and 11 RBI. Has he helped the Yankees win games? Absolutely. Dohis stats countnow? Absolutely.Is he back in the relative good graces of baseball? Yes, he is. Are the Yankees bothered and angered that they have to pay him moving forward? No question about it. However, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

He is good for the Yankees because he one of the only current players that the fans can actually connect with. There is a history there, as sordid as it really is. Simply, the Yankees bailed outA-Rodwhen they brought him backand gave him a new 10-year contract after he opted out. There is not bailout nowfor the Yankees, they just have to buck up and pay the man.