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The subsequent time the son of a highway group’s famous person visits the Bronx, the Yankees could be clever to deal with him properly. Youngsters with lengthy recollections and extraordinary expertise enjoyment of revenge.
Within the Nineties, it was Ken Griffey Jr. Now, it’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Simply as Griffey tormented the Yankees repeatedly in his prime, Guerrero, 24, is doing the identical in his. The newest punches came to visit the weekend in a sequence victory for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Guerrero, their slugging first baseman, blasted a two-run homer to start out the scoring on Friday. On Sunday he did it once more, pulling a blistering liner into the seats close to the left area foul pole with two outs within the sixth inning. The Blue Jays went on to win, 5-1, and the Yankees misplaced a sequence for the primary time this season.
As he rounded first base, Guerrero pointed skyward. He stutter-stepped on his approach round third. He kissed his wrists as he pranced dwelling. The group booed, and Guerrero reveled in it.
“In fact, you take heed to it,” Guerrero, who’s hitting .341, stated in Spanish by an interpreter. “However they’re not going to take that dwelling run away from me. I’m simply going to proceed to run the bases and luxuriate in it.”
Although Guerrero can’t be a free agent till after the 2025 Main League Baseball season, he vowed publicly final low season to by no means play for the Yankees. The declaration echoed one by Griffey, then with the Seattle Mariners, who was filmed signing autographs at outdated Yankee Stadium and vowed: “In the event that they had been the one group that gave me a contract, I’d retire.”
Griffey’s stance got here from a sobering incident as a young person, when he was sitting together with his father, Ken Sr., on the Yankees’ bench earlier than a sport. A safety guard advised the Griffeys that the Yankees’ proprietor, George Steinbrenner, had issued an edict to clear the dugout. They did, however not earlier than Ken Sr. identified that the son of a teammate, Graig Nettles, was taking grounders at third base at that very second.
The takeaway — {that a} white participant was given privileges not afforded a Black participant — emboldened the youthful Griffey, who hit 41 homers in opposition to the Yankees in his profession, together with 5 in a five-game playoff sequence victory in 1995. (Just one group, the Minnesota Twins, allowed extra homers to Griffey.)
Guerrero’s father, Vladimir Sr., by no means performed for a New York group in his Corridor of Fame profession, though his profession common in opposition to the Yankees (.319, together with the postseason) is a bit higher than his .316 profession mark throughout the common season and playoffs. Regardless of the origin of Guerrero’s subject with the Yankees, it appears to chop simply as deeply.
“It’s a private factor,” he stated Sunday. “It goes again with my household, and I’m not going to speak about greater than that. Issues occurred previously and I’m simply going to depart it like that.”
Like Griffey Jr., Guerrero Jr. has thrived in opposition to the Yankees. His slugging share at Yankee Stadium is .614, the perfect of any participant within the ballpark’s 15-year historical past (minimal 100 at-bats). His 12 homers within the Bronx are essentially the most he has hit in any highway stadium.
“You get right here and also you get booed, and you may type of do one in all two issues,” Blue Jays Supervisor John Schneider stated. “Reggie Jackson stated, ‘They don’t boo nobodies,’ so I believe Vladdy type of labored off of that just a little bit. Everyone knows the type of hitter that he’s.”
Toronto starter Kevin Gausman, who blanked the Yankees for seven innings on Sunday, stated Guerrero basks within the heel’s position.
“It looks as if he loves taking part in right here,” Gausman stated. “He says he doesn’t like coming right here, however he performs fairly nicely right here. Anytime he comes as much as bat, we’re all paying consideration as a result of he simply hits the ball so laborious. He’s a man that type of likes being the villain once we come right here.”
The Blue Jays’ George Springer has expertise with heckling; he performed for the champion Houston Astros in 2017, the 12 months of their sign-stealing scandal, and was among the many gamers booed by opposing followers as soon as the scheme was revealed. Springer stated Guerrero is calm by nature, trusting in his expertise and his course of. However it’s a subtlety that impresses Springer most.
“How he processes data is next-level,” Springer stated. “He’s a scholar of the sport in his personal approach. The best way he goes about issues, I imply, he remembers all the things.”
Together with, fairly clearly, one thing from the previous that drives Guerrero to conquer the Yankees each probability he will get.
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