Tabloids Take Big Hack At A-Rod After First Game Back
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- The New York Post is marking Alex Rodriguez's first hit in over 17 months with an asterisk.
The tabloid's front page, which said the Yankees slugger's single in an exhibition game Wednesday "would have been a homer on the juice," was the talk of the town Thursday morning. But not everyone was amused.
FOXSports.com writer Jimmy Traina, an outspoken Yankees fan, tweeted to his 53,000 followers that the cover was "incredibly lame and stupid." Meanwhile, WFAN morning show co-host Craig Carton railed against what he called over-the-top coverage of Rodriguez's first game back from a yearlong PED ban.
"Against a professional pitcher, Alex Rodriguez looked like a baseball player and was able to play baseball, something a lot of people thought he'd never be able to do again," Carton said. "Period. Stop."
A-Rod went 1 for 2 with a walk and a soft line-drive single in his first at-bat.
"I mean, what? When you read that and you wake up this morning -- I said to myself, I go, 'Listen, we all acknowledge A-Rod is the biggest story, right. Fine, fine, fine.' But ... it would have been a homer on the juice?" Carton said. "We're now editorializing a single to left!"
B&C On Jets, A-Rod And More
Subscribe to the Boomer & Carton Podcast »
The back page of the Post wasn't much kinder: "CHEERS FOR THE CHEAT; For openers, fans A-pprove of A-Rod."
Then there was the rival New York Daily News, which left Rodriguez off its front page but oozed sarcasm on the back cover, calling the hitter who had a notoriously poor 2012 postseason "Mr. March."
"Just leave him alone," said Carton's co-host, Boomer Esiason. "Let him go play baseball."
