Palmeiro, 53, serious about comeback

Rafael Palmeiro isn’t playing for a minor-league team at age 53 just so he can be teammates with his son.

Palmeiro said he knows there are people who think he has lost his mind, but he is serious about wanting to make a big-league comeback nearly 13 years after his career ended under a cloud when he tested positive for a banned steroid.

“I’m doing it because I love the game first of all,” Palmeiro said Thursday. “And because I want to get back to proving to myself that I can do this and maybe for some of those people that think that I cheated, they might think again and say well, he’s 53 years old, he’s playing at this level, he’s producing. Maybe some of those will say, OK, he did it legitimately.”

Palmeiro is going the independent league route after not getting a non-roster invite from an MLB team during spring training. Palmeiro and his 28year-old son Patrick, a third baseman, were introduced by the second-year Cleburne Railroaders of the American Association, then played in the team’s first spring training game.

“I know that I can do it and I was looking for an opportunity,” said Palmeiro, who played first base and strikeout.

The elder Palmeiro, who has 569 career homers, took a called third strike on a tough slider in his first at-bat, then led off the ninth with a sharp single. Patrick Palmeiro had a single and walked and also had a nifty sliding grab at third before getting up and completing the play with a throw to his father.

“He’s going to hit,” Patrick Palmeiro said. “He was born to hit. We go hit in the cage every day and the show he puts on in batting practice, it’s impressive This guy doesn’t pick up a bat for 10 years and he looked like he just stopped playing.” went 1-for-2 with a