To “welcome” the Tampa Yankees to town on Friday, the Charlotte Stone Crabs minor-league baseball team planned to stage an “A-Rod Juice Box Night”.
The event was clearly a jab at Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez, the controversial New York Yankees designated hitter, who is third on the career home run list with 664 but was suspended for the 2014 season for his part in the “Biogenesis scandal” in which it was alleged he used the banned substance HGH.
Also, “juice” is baseball slang for drugs, particularly steroids, which Rodriguez in 2007 admitted he had used from 2001 to 2003.
In promotional messages, the Stone Crabs, who are affiliated with New York Yankees rival Tampa Bay Rays, said: “The first 500 fans in attendance will receive an A-Rod themed juice box they can either drink or donate to the Charlotte County Homeless Coalition, and any fan wearing an A-Rod jersey, T-shirt or hat will receive a free ticket to the game.”
The label on the juice box listed side effects of “tainted records, inflated ego, omission from the Hall of Fame, and more!”
A poster created for the game showed a woman drinking juice from a box under the headline: “Come get juiced”.
The Tampa Yankees are an affiliate of the New York Yankees, and the Major League club were not amused at the Stone Crabs’ promotion.
They contacted Major League Baseball headquarters, the Tampa Bay Rays and the Florida State League, organisers of the game, seeking to have the promotion stopped.
Jason Zillo, a New York Yankees spokesman, said the club had “taken many steps, to get them to cease and desist”.
They were successful. According to Tampa Bay Times reporter Marc Topkin, the promotion was cancelled after the Yankees protested.
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