Some Thoughts On Alex Rodriguez

He’s the most notorious steroids user this side of Barry Bonds, an all-time hitter who belongs in the Hall of Fame despite those PEDs, the definition of anti-clutch (anecdotal, but no one hit more meaningless home runs), a whiner, a loser, a cheater, an MVP, a world champion, and the flesh-and-blood incarnate of Hamburger Helper. We’ll never see anyone like Alex Rodriguez again.

Everything fallible, pathetic, and human about Rodriguez can be summed up with The Slap. That was Peak A-Rod before we knew what Peak Anything meant. To recap: On the biggest stage possible, a championship series game against the Boston Red Sox, Rodriguez failed. But something inside Rodriguez pushed him to try anything to succeed — even cheat. In another life, perhaps the umpires would have ruled Rodriguez safe; during another series, maybe Rodriguez would have been hailed a hero for his heads-up play. Gritty, they would say. He just didn’t know how to lose.

Maybe he didn’t, but the Yankees did: Rodriguez was ruled out, the New York choked away what was a 3–0 series lead in the ALCS, and then got smoked out of the building in Game 7. The Slap is a defining moment in the biggest choke job in baseball history, and it belongs to Rodriguez.

It wasn’t all bad for Rodriguez in New York. He won MVP trophies in 2005 and 2007, and was a key figure in the Yankees’ last World Series winner, in 2009 (he hit .437 with 5 HRs combined in the ALDS and ALCS). But as the years have passed, the 2004 ALCS feels like the actual last night of the Yankees dynasty. After that collapse, the Yankees just became another team, with Rodriguez the face of their generic success and often outrageous hubris. The late ’90s Yankees were the neighborhood pizza joint locals loved; the 12 years when Rodriguez ruled turned them into Domino’s.

That sounds harsh, especially in a piece that really means to come at Rodriguez with some empathy. (Blame the residual hatred; no one was a bigger sports villain in New York outside of Mike Francesa for 12 years.) Because underneath all the questionable comments and decisions, is a man who only ever wanted to win, both titles and fan approval. Alex Rodriguez’s greatest sin was a desire to be loved — and he sacrificed everything, including his legacy, to chase that wish. Much like The Slap, he failed: no one likes Rodriguez now, least of all the Yankees, who shuffled him off the team with as little fanfare and playing time as possible. (The Yankees kicked Rodriguez out the door before celebrating the 1996 World Series winners and the team’s Core Four; they didn’t even want him near that legacy.) But maybe he deserves something better: an understanding of what made him tick, and an appreciation for his skills. No one was ever better than Alex Rodriguez, but because of his actions, that doesn’t matter. We’ll remember the drugs. We’ll remember the ego. We’ll remember The Slap.

Roy Hobbs: I coulda been better. I coulda broke every record in the book.
Iris Gaines: And then?
Roy Hobbs: And then? And then when I walked down the street people would’ve looked and they would’ve said, ‘There goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in this game.’