All spring Alex Rodriguez has been separated from his Yankees teammates, preferring to rehab his hip surgery between New York and his Miami home. Likewise, team management seems to have been just fine with that, keeping perhaps baseball’s biggest distraction away from the team during a tumultuous (read: injury-plagued) Grapefruit League campaign.
Well, according to Newsday, Rodriguez will not only be taking in Monday’s Red Sox-Yankees season-opener in person, but he’ll also be participating in pregame ceremonies. Aside from the usual Opening Day festivities, the teams have planned a tribute to the Newtown school-shooting tragedy.
Monday will mark the first time Rodriguez has been with his teammates since Game 4 of the 2012 ALCS, when the Yankees were swept by the Tigers and Rodriguez went 1-for-9 with no RBIs. Much of the A-Rod news since that time has been related to his connection to the Miami-based Biogenesis clinic, which allegedly doled out performance-enhancing drugs to a myriad of Major League Baseball players.
“I wouldn’t see why he wouldn’t do it,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said of Rodriguez’s participation on Monday. “I don’t know what the expectation is, but he’s a part of our team and I’m looking forward to seeing him.”
