Alfonso Soriano
FameRank: 5

"Alfonso Guilleard Soriano" is a Dominican former professional baseball outfielder, designated hitter, and second baseman. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers (baseball)/Texas Rangers, and Washington Nationals, and in Nippon Professional Baseball for the Hiroshima Toyo Carp.

Soriano began his professional career with Hiroshima in 1996, but signed with the Yankees as a free agent in 1998 and was assigned to play in minor league baseball. The next year, he was the Most Valuable Player (MVP) in the All-Star Futures Game, and made his MLB debut. The Yankees traded Soriano to the Rangers after the 2003 season, and the Rangers traded Soriano to the Nationals after the 2005 season. He signed a contract as a free agent with the Cubs before the 2007 season. The Cubs traded Soriano to the Yankees in 2013, and the Yankees released him in 2014.

Soriano is a seven-time Major League Baseball All-Star Game/MLB All-Star, and won the MLB All-Star Game MVP/All-Star Game MVP Award in 2004. He won the Silver Slugger Award four times. He played primarily as a second baseman for the Yankees and Rangers.

Soriano is one of only 51 all time major league baseball players to hit 400 or more home runs, and was 7th among active players in home runs at the time of his retirement.

More Alfonso Soriano on Wikipedia.

Stats don't mean a lot to me. What means a lot is being available to play every day. I like to play the game and that's what I think about. I love the game and I don't want to lose that.

When I look at myself on tape I can see that, but I just didn't make the adjustments at the time.

Look, I know that there are people who are racist, but what surprised me was that he was so open about it. I know there is racism out there, but many people don't express it like that.

I don't want to change. If I haven't done it before, I won't do it now.

My agent told me there were a couple of teams interested. I said I don't want to worry about it. I said if it happens, call me. But don't tell me who the teams are. Don't say anything about it until it happens.

I just told him I'm confident. I had a couple bad games, but I'm comfortable at the plate. He's like my father. I like when he talks to me.

I'm happy with my new team. That's the most important thing to me.

This is the first day that I didn't feel good, but it's good to get everybody together today. That's the most important thing. Tomorrow, I hope to feel better and better.

We have a day off tomorrow and will think about the baseball we've played the last two weeks. After that, we'll get back to baseball.