NEW YORK (AP) – All Alex Rodriguez has to do is get 10 RBIs every game. Then New York Yankees fans just might start accepting him as one of their own.

His three-homer game against the Anaheim Angels on Tuesday night was the attention-grabbing performance New York has been waiting for in the 14 months since baseball’s $252 million man put on the pinstripes for the first time.

“That’s the problem with it,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said as he sat in the dugout Wednesday afternoon. “Magnify it or multiply by it by all the games left, he’ll break everybody’s record.”

Even owner George Steinbrenner wouldn’t quibble with 1,620 RBIs in one year – as long as A-Rod hits in the postseason, too.

New York papers had front-page headlines about A-Rod, just the 11th player to reach double digits in RBIs in a major league game. “HOT ROD” said the New York Post. “A-BOMB!” said the Daily News.

Rodriguez went straight home after New York’s 12-4 win and didn’t go out again until leaving for the ballpark Wednesday.

He tried to make light of it, saying his wife, Cynthia, didn’t depart from the usual routine at their Manhattan apartment.

“She made me throw out the garbage, like every other day,” he said.

A-Rod faced a lot of trash talk during the offseason and spring training.

, especially from Boston’s Curt Schilling. It morphed into debate over whether he was “a true Yankee” and what that phrase meant, if anything.

When you make the most money in baseball, expectations are huge. He didn’t hit in the clutch much of the time last year until the final 11/2 months of the season, struggled again with runners on in the first few weeks of this year.

Talk radio said Gary Sheffield had the bigger hits last year, and Rodriguez was constantly reminded that Yankees captain Derek Jeter had four World Series rings and he had none, especially after the Red Sox rallied to win the AL championship series. Only big hits would answer the criticism.

“What do you expect him to be?” Jeter said. “He’s going to have off days. I don’t care how good you are. You’re not going to do that every day – .300 you’re still failing a lot. That’s the bottom line. The expectation level is so high, It’s impossible, probably, for him to reach our expectation level.”

A-Rod’s hair was tinted gold for a stretch during last season. Now it’s back to normal, and his life in his second year in New York has become a little less stressful, too.

“I don’t know if there’s any way to prepare for year one, and that type of focus and attention,” he said one afternoon at spring training, when he stayed behind at camp while the team played on the road. “But I do think that once you have a year under your belt, I think things somewhat go back to normality, as normal as they can be in New York.”

He found his adjustment to the Yankees more jarring than anticipated, concluding that staying in a hotel for the first six weeks of the season was “a nightmare” that became mentally confining.

“Where do you escape?” he said.

“Again, none of this is by any means an excuse of how I played on the field,” he went on. “I’m just talking about an overall lifestyle. You can be in any business. You can be a banker or even a student going to Columbia, whatever. Going to Manhattan is not like moving into Tampa. It all presents a unique situation.”

He hit .286 with 36 homers, 106 RBIs and 28 steals, then batted .421 against Minnesota in the first round of the playoffs.

But by his standards, it wasn’t enough. His average was his lowest since 1999, his home runs and RBIs his fewest since 1997. In his first season at third base after moving over from shortstop, he played pretty well but wasn’t a Gold Glove.

“He’s put so much on himself, things that he can do, that it’s tough to live up to,” Torre said.

A-Rod comes off as overly polished at times. His skills in responding to reporters are as good as his prowess at the plate.

As for the criticism, he said it doesn’t get to him.

“It bounces off pretty good. It just makes you stronger,” he said. “And if writers and fans in general feel that strongly about you, boy, that’s the same way I feel about myself. I have those same type of expectations.”

Torre said that when Rodriguez came to the plate in the fourth inning Tuesday night, even the players got caught up in the moment.

“He’s hit two home runs, he’s knocked in five runs and all of a sudden he’s up there with the bases loaded, and every single person in the ballpark, including guys on our bench, are thinking the same thing,” the manager said. “That’s unusual. Normally, the players have a little more of a realistic thought process.”

Rodriguez came through with a grand slam and followed with an RBI single his next time up before lining to center.

He was the talk of the town Wednesday, just like Reggie Jackson was in the late 1970s.

But Reggie hit his three homers in the World Series. In the clincher.

That’s what Rodriguez is up against. He says he realizes it.

“You’ve got to keep doing it every night in New York,” he said.

AP-ES-04-27-05 1928EDT