Som vi anade – han ville ju göra det inför hemmapubliken på Yankee Stadium.
Det dröjde två veckor, tolv matcher och 47 at-bats mellan home run 599 och home run 600, men nu är Alex Rodriguez där.
Som den sjunde spelaren i basebollhistorien.
– Det var en lättnad att bara få det avklarat. Inget snack om att jag pressat mig själv eftersom jag ville få det överstökat, sa A-Rod efter sin homer mot Toronto Blue Jays (Yankees-seger 5–1).

Ingen spelare har varit yngre (Rodriguez är 35) när han passerat 600-gränsen. Och nu följer debatten – vad är prestationen värd?
De amerikanska kolumnisterna verkar samlas runt ungefär samma ståndpunkt: att Rodriguez, som erkänt att han använt anabola steroider tidigare i sin karriär, är en fantastisk idrottsman – men att home run-topplistan är skamfilad och har förlorat mycket av sin betydelse.

Här är några utdrag ur de stora sportmedierna:

”That’s the great shame of A-Rod’s Shakespearean tragedy. Without drugs, his talent and effort might’ve toppled the genuine career and single-season home run records held by Aaron and Roger Maris, never mind the living, breathing pharmacies that passed them.

A-Rod’s clean pursuit of history would’ve taken longer, and could’ve ultimately fallen short. But had he chosen that path, imagine the feel-good karma that would radiate from Rodriguez right now, in a summer defined by LeBron’s embarrassing bailout, and in a time shaped by all the death and dying in the Yankees’ midst.

The career home run record was the most prestigious milestone in sports, at least until it fell into Barry Bonds’ hands. Rodriguez could’ve restored the romance and majesty to the mark, if only he were secure enough to gamble on himself.”
– Ian O’Connor, ESPNNewYork.com

”Rodriguez’s accomplishment means that more players have hit their 600th homer in the last decade than did in the first 125 years of baseball history. A 600th home run simply isn’t as special as it was just 10 years ago.

Moreover, 600 homers isn’t seen as an achievement for Rodriguez so much as a mile marker. An All-Star at 20, a quarter-billionaire at 25, a member of the 400-homer and 500-homer clubs at a younger age than anyone else, and still a very good player at 35, Rodriguez is expected to shatter the all-time home-run record, currently held by Barry Bonds with 762.”
– Joe Sheehan, Sports Illustrated

”Was he a cheat? A fraud? A phony? Was he just trying to keep pace with the rest of the game? Taking advantage of a loophole in baseball’s rules? Aching for greatness like everyone does?

Do we rejoice or lament? Applaud or boo? Acknowledge or dismiss?

Such questions will find answers somewhere between here and 762, the home run record held by the face of the steroid era, Barry Bonds. Over that time, the context of Rodriguez’s career, and his place in the annals of steroid users, will come into greater focus. Nobody will blink when he hits No. 610 to pass Sammy Sosa. The reaction when he usurps Ken Griffey Jr.(notes) with No. 631 will be telling – whether there is anger or joy or numbness that purportedly the greatest clean ballplayer of his generation got surpassed by the one who should have been.”
– Jeff Passan, Yahoo Sports

”Hitting 600 home runs is still amazing. What does this 600th home run mean, though? A-Rod has, of course, admitted to using steroids during his home run prime. So to many, his 600th home run won’t even count, won’t even exist, a record-book mirage.

But even to those who have come to grips with the Selig Era and the simple fact that all the numbers in the record books are distorted by one queasy fact or another, the 600 home run number STILL feels used up. It is like someone struggling to climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, reaching the peak and finding that people had already built a McDonald’s, a Home Depot and a Best Buy up there. Steroids are not the only thing that caused the home run explosion of the 1990s — I’ve long suspected that they weren’t even the biggest thing. Smaller strike zones, harder bats, body armor, smaller ballparks, weight training (not even including performance enhancers), money incentives, expansion… all these things and more pointed toward bigger power numbers. The game did not tilt… it was tilted. A lot of people wanted more home runs. And the men running baseball had to give people what they wanted.”
– Joe Posnanski, Sports Illustrated

/Petter.