When President Theodore Roosevelt gave his famous “Man in the Arena” address in 1910, he had no idea he’d be drawing the perfect parallel for Juan Soto and New York Yankees fans.
Soto signed with the Yankees’ crosstown rivals, the New York Mets, for a record-setting $765 million contract. There was no greater betrayal in the eyes of those Yankees fans, and this weekend, in Soto’s return to the Bronx, they’re planning to let him hear it.
While there will be 52 players on both sides striving for victory, this series is really about one man. That man knows he’s in for a raucous environment, but ultimately, his contributions on the field are the only tangible results that matter.
Ahead of the season’s most highly anticipated baseball game to date on Friday, Soto acknowledged that the crowd will have their voices heard even louder than usual at Yankee Stadium.
“It’s going to be 50,000 against one. They’re going to try to get on me, you know. It’s part of it,” Soto said, per Jon Heyman of the New York Post.
“Whatever they do, they have the right to do it. I’m just going to go out there and do my stuff. I’m just going to try to focus on my game.”
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After only one season in the Bronx, where Soto was sent via trade, not because he expressly wanted to be there, the 26-year-old had the right to sign with whichever team he felt most comfortable with. Yankees fans don’t have to forgive him for it, but he also doesn’t need to take their taunts to heart.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly,” Roosevelt said all those years ago.
Nothing Yankees fans can yell at Soto will matter if he belts a few home runs in their midst this weekend. And this is a matchup that will continue for the next decade-plus, so he’ll have plenty of chances to send a message.
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