Listen to Six Different Calls of A-Rod's Milestone 660th Home Run, Including John Sterling's

Alex Rodriguez hit his 660th home run Friday night at Fenway Park to tie Willie Mays for fourth on the all-time list. Under most circumstances this would be reason for celebration, however, nothing is ever simple when it comes to A-Rod. His contract includes a clause for $6 million bonus when he reaches the milestone, but thanks in no small to his 200+ game PED suspension, the Yankees don’t want to pay it, let alone celebrate the achievement.

The Yankees love to tout their history on the team-owned YES Network at any and all times, however most of the reactions to the home run were muted. Odds are A-Rod’s lined shot over the Green Monster off Junichi Tazawa won’t be reused ad infinitum in nostalgia-stirring commercials on YES in the future.

Above I’ve included a video from MLB that combines the home run calls from YES, WFAN, WADO, NESN, WEEI and MLB Network. Bombastic Yankees radio play-by-play man John Sterling called it, “an ultra-dramatic moment!” YES play-by-play voice Michael Kay (against type) didn’t go crazy, while analyst Ken Singleton did use the word “milestone.”

Everyone involved, from the broadcast standpoint, caught a break since the home run was actually important in the game itself, let alone its historic merits. It broke a tie in top of the 8th and came at Fenway Park — home to the Yankees longest rivals. For good measure it was A-Rod’s first career pinch-hit homer and it came on a 3-0 count. Add all that up and it would’ve been difficult to undersell the homer completely on the broadcast.

That said, per Forbes, the Yankees are valued at close to $2.5 billion. Haggling over $6 million mostly looks petty.