A-Rod hits first spring-training homer, people love it

Lots of people hate Alex Rodriguez, sure, but when he connected for his first spring-training homer Wednesday — a solo shot he pounded to left-center field — the crowd at the New York Yankees’ spring training stadium in Tampa cheered like he wasn’t baseball’s biggest villain.

Round them bases, A-Rod, listen to them cheers, because you won’t be hearing ’em everywhere you play this season.

This was Rodriguez’s first homer in a game in 537 days, since Sept. 20, 2013. It came against the Boston Red Sox’s Brandon Workman, because you just can’t stop the Red Sox/Yankees train, ever. 

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As much as some people say A-Rod is useless and wish he would just go away, he’s actually been hitting pretty well this spring. Sure, it doesn’t mean much compared to a regular-season batting average, but A-Rod is hitting .455 after the homer. It was his fifth hit in five spring games.

“I think he’s moving along as you would expect a veteran player to move along,” said Yankees manager Joe Girardi in a dugout interview shortly after the homer.

A-Rod had to be happy to be moving along in his home-run trot again. It had been a while.

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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz