In , Sports Illustrated reported that Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in Rodriguez later confessed to using steroids years earlier, but said that he had since been and would continue to be clean. Skip to header Skip to main content Skip to footer Feature. And now, a quick, non-exhaustive reminder of why basically everyone except A-Rod hates A-Rod.
The Braves' delayed racial reckoning. Jeva Lange. Most Popular. Alex Rodriguez , if not for the steroid scandals that plagued his reputation in recent years, turning from regional pariah in Seattle to national pariah in New York, would have gone down as a first-ballot Hall of Famer and one of the best players ever in Major League history.
Because A-Rod was a member of the Mariners during the glory days and then left us. Seattle drafted Alex Rodriguez first overall in and he broke into the majors the next year during the strike-shortened season. We thought he would save baseball in Seattle and bring us a championship, finally!
We all know what happened next. Ever since A-Rod left, Mariners fans have thrown Monopoly money at him when he has played in Seattle. We grew up with this guy. Then he got selfish.
Alex Rodriguez languished for several awful Texas Ranger teams before he bolted again several years before his contract expired for the New York Yankees. He had another successful season in at age 40 and has a shot of overtaking Bonds on the home run list. And he was ours. Imagine telling your self that in less than two decades, ARod would be choosing Papi over his own team captain. Ortiz and Rodriguez are good friends in their post-playing days. Everyone who watches postseason baseball on Fox, or has social media knows this.
But no one wants to see them pal around during a heated Rivalry matchup on national television, and in a playoff hunt, no less. But fans on both sides already have to contend with the fact that the current Rivalry is dead.
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The guy is so good, and at such a young age, that we literally have no analogs for him in our experience. We don't relate. He strikes us as robotic, as impossibly skilled. We can't sympathize. But empathy is a different impulse.
Empathy means stepping outside ourselves and our conventions. We don't really know what kind of stress A-Rod feels, but empathy would have us wonder. Empathy would have us thinking about how "sensitive" might be the flip side of "passionate. It would mean being emotionally entangled, responsible even. Most of us reject that prospect.
We run from it. We prefer the simple, familiar mechanics of winners and losers, heroes and villains, guys who have it and guys who don't. We say it's all about the rings. We say, as if we have no weaknesses ourselves, as if we've never shrunk from anything in our personal or professional lives, "suck it up" and "be a man.
We treat him as if his sensitivities were contagious, as if he had cooties. Once that die is cast and he's outside the realm of empathy, we can have our way with him, even if the way we do him seems wildly out of whack with his performance. The guy gets his temperature taken every single at-bat. And he's found wanting. Every single time. Every single time he collects a check. Every single time Jeter makes a play or Papi goes deep. And every single time he takes his shirt off in the park.
It's all fair game. What's often lost in this game is the fact the guy is ridiculously good. Once-in-a-generation good. Will we ever come around to him? A world championship ring or some dramatic October heroics would go a long way, no doubt.
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