TAMPA — The guest instructor appearing at Yankees spring training for the first time Tuesday will have his own afternoon press conference.
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Yes, Alex Rodriguez is coming back, and it’s going to be equal parts interesting and odd but wholly intriguing.
Manager Joe Girardi, however, said he wants A-Rod to just do what any other guest instructor would do: Teach.
“He’s going to work with out players (and) extend the knowledge that he has about how to play in the game to the young kids,” Girard said at George M. Steinbrenner Field on Monday.
That’s right. Girard wants Rodriguez to play the same role as Nick Swisher, Goose Gossage, Stump Merrill and other Yankees luminaries who hang around, chat with the players and occasionally give pointers.
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Girard said Rodriguez should share his takes on “some of the expectations, how to deal with it, how to deal with different positions, how to hit, how to hit in the middle of the order. All of the things that Alex did well, those are the things we want him to offer insights to the younger players and the older players.”
The Yankees released Rodriguez in August last year but decided to keep A-Rod on as a minor-league instructor reporting to owner Hal Steinbrenner for all of 2017.
Rodriguez’s first round as an instructor came at the Yankees’ instructional league at their training facility here in the fall.
Girardi was asked if he would have been surprised at A-Rod’s new role, considering how toxic his relationship with the Yankees was three years ago, at the height of the Biogenesis scandal that saw Rodriguez threaten to sue the league and the Yankees and ultimately ended in his full-season suspension.
“You think about the history of this relationship, the history that I know, Mr. (George) Steinbrenner always gave people second and third chances and brought people back to the organization and did really good things for the organization,” the manager said. “There’s situations that happen that aren’t so positive. That didn’t keep Mr. Steinbrenner from bringing back people and Hal’s doing the same thing.”
Brendan Kuty may be reached at bkuty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BrendanKutyNJ. Find NJ.com Yankees on Facebook.
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