When Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez joined twitter earlier this week, most figured that it was just a matter of time until he got himself in trouble with his new connection to social media. However even the worst of A-Rod’s critics have to be surprised at how quickly he has managed to get into trouble, and with how the Yankees front office has reacted.
Rodriguez tweeted the following, which comes with an accompanying Instagram photo:
“Visit from Dr. Kelly over the weekend, who gave me the best news – the green light to play games again!”
The news really shouldn’t have shocked anyone. As we reported here Monday, it was not exactly a well known secret that Dr. Kelly, the man who performed Rodriguez’s January hip surgery, had cleared the slugger to begin playing games as part of his rehab. The only problem? Well the Yankees’ front office, and specifically General Manager Brian Cashman, didn’t like his star player making such an official announcement to the world, especially since Dr. Kelly is not on the Yankee payroll as one of the team’s physicians.
Word of the tweet filtered down to Cashman during an Interview with ESPNNewYork’s Andrew Marchand, and suffice it to say, Cashman was livid and had a message for A-Rod.
“You know what, when the Yankees want to announce something, [we will],” Cashman told ESPN New York. “Alex should just shut the f— up. That’s it. I’m going to call Alex now.”
“He has not been cleared by our doctors to play in rehab games yet,” he said. “He’s getting closer. There’s no doubt about it. But we don’t have a date for him to start playing games yet. It could be July 1. It could also be July 5 or maybe June 25.”
Its quite clear that the relationship between Rodriguez and Yankees management is clearly strained at this point. However there is no denying that A-Rod’s bat would be a welcome addition to a Yankee lineup that is clearly suffering through injuries and needs the added offence right now. It will be interesting to see how this situation develops.
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