A few held up cameras as they booed. Several shouted, “Cheater!” Others just stood and watched as he dug in at the plate.

Rodriguez was making his first appearance this season at Fenway Park — where the Yankees always face special abuse — just as a new report surfaced with allegations that his associates had implicated Ryan Braun and Francisco Cervelli in the Biogenesis scandal. A couple of Red Sox players had publicly declared that Rodriguez should not be playing during the appeal process of his 211-game suspension for performance-enhancing-drug violations.

Fans at Fenway were not happy to see him. When he came up in the first, they cheered after his first strike. Then a group down the third-base line started chanting, “You’re a cheat-er!” Others joined in.

On a 2-2 count, with two runners on and one out, Rodriguez lined out to third baseman Will Middlebrooks, who tossed the ball to second for an inning-ending double play as the crowd let out a sound of elation.

Before the game, Fenway felt as it would for any other Friday night game. Thousands of Red Sox fans choked Yawkey Way and clogged the concourse, with Yankees fans sprinkled throughout. The mood was fun and light, with the Red Sox atop the division and the Yankees eight and a half games back.

As Rodriguez took batting practice, fans waited on the Green Monster with their gloves. Rodriguez sent one ball over the Monster, toward Lansdowne Street, and one fan, Mehdi Kohanbani, 32, wearing a Jacoby Ellsbury jersey, turned and watched it land.

“He’s going to get booed, man, like always,” Kohanbani said. “Nobody likes him.”

This week, two Red Sox, John Lackey and Jonny Gomes, questioned why Rodriguez was allowed to keep playing while he appealed his suspension.

“I’ve got a problem with it; you bet I do,” Lackey told The Boston Globe. “How is he still playing? He obviously did something, and he’s playing. I’m not sure that’s right.”

Friday’s booing began when the lineups were announced; for all the other Yankees, there was polite applause.

During the national anthem, Rodriguez rocked back and forth on his heels and then glanced back at the crowd. As soon as the anthem ended, someone yelled a disparaging remark at him.

As Rodriguez jogged off the field, there were more jeers. One man stood, pointed with a half-eaten hot dog in his hand and shouted: “You’re a bum, A-Rod! And I’m a Yankee fan saying that! You’re a bum!” He repeated that several more times.

The crowd booed again, not as loudly, as he came to bat in the third, with the Yankees ahead, 6-0. There was a smattering of applause as Rodriguez singled to the right side.

He was jeered in the fifth, but not as loudly once again. By then, the Yankees led by 7-1, and the game seemed out of reach.

Gerry Callahan, a sports radio talk show host in Boston, said of Rodriguez: “He’s kind of a pathetic figure at this point. He’s not the villain he once was. He was a lot more hateable when he was good. Now he’s a shell of his former self.”