Bronx Dud

On July 22nd, in New York hosting the visiting Kansas City Royals, A-Rod launched the 599th home run of his career, sending the baseball world on the edge of their seats anxiously waiting for him to reach the 600 HR milestone. However, a slump would soon follow as the Yankees prepared for a road trip. 12-Games and 47 at-bats later, Rodriguez would finally connect for no. 600 in front of the Yankee faithful, ending an 0-for-17 skid and getting the monkey off the back of both he and his Yankee teammates. Toronto Blue Jays' Shaun Marcum fell victim to the long ball, during the first inning and would eventually suffer the loss, 5-1. Coincidentally, the feat came 3-years to the day of A-Rod's 500th career homer. And ironically, teammate Derek Jeter was on base during both milestones.

At age 35, Rodriguez becomes the youngest player to reach 600 home runs, surpassing the great Babe Ruth who hit number 600 at the age of 36. He also becomes only the 7th member in Major League history to make it into the 600 Home Run Club, joining the elite class of Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., and Sammy Sosa. Although A-Rod is the youngest player to join the club by a year and some change, his legacy is entirely different due to his admitted use of steroids from his hay day with the Texas Rangers organization which spanned from 2001-2003. Prior to his admitted usage of performance enhancing drugs, Rodriguez was the one guy everyone was rooting for in hopes of breaking the all-time home run record which was set 3-years ago by Barry Bonds, due to his links to PED's. Instead those fans' hopes were shattered once A-Rod made public of his banned substance usage just a year ago.

With A-Rod's two week homer drought finally reaching its climax, there's no telling how much pressure would be on him to hit no. 700 and beyond if he were to remain healthy. With that being said, hopefully he'll spare both his team and the rest of us baseball fans by not reaching the 700 HR mark. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say, I don't know how many more constant in-game look-ins I can take.