I Was A-Fool, A-Rod
A lifelong Red Sox fan faces a devastating, inconvenient truth: Alex Rodriguez is charming.
It’s the season of giving, and self-reflection. We’re not proud of everything we’ve said about celebrities who may not have deserved it over the years. Now is our chance to set the record straight. Lou Cimaglia wraps up our series with this unexpected apology.
Dear Alex Rodriguez,
What a ride we’ve had together, right?
You first entered my life in 1996, your rookie season with the Seattle Mariners. I was an impressionable kid, growing up in a suburb of Boston. You were pretty cool! You played with Ken Griffey, Jr. every day. That’s like being cool by osmosis.
Eight years later, you changed. You were traded to the New York Yankees. I was 13 years old.
Your move to the Yankees was just months after Aaron Boone hoisted a Tim Wakefield knuckleball into the New York night, prolonging and amplifying the suffering of Red Sox fans across the world. I thought to myself, “there’s no way I could ever hate a Yankees third baseman more than I hate Aaron Boone right now.”
I was wrong.
From 2004–2016, your unabashed douchebaggery knew no bounds. You turned it into an art form. You couldn’t have been a more perfect villain for Red Sox fans if you were conceived in a test tube by Steven King and the restless ghost of George Steinbrenner, in a lab run out of a Yankee Stadium bathroom stall. We needed you like Batman needed the Joker.
In 2004, the fortunes of Sox fans changed. After 86 years, the hometown team finally won the World Series. And you, my steroidal friend, were the true foe we needed to vanquish before we got there. When Jason Varitek plunged his mitt into your smug, profane piehole earlier that season, it’s like you cemented the identity of Massholes everywhere. That’s who we aspired to be.
Like most Boston-bred young men, 14–19 years old at the time, I said some pretty awful things about you. I think I may have made requests of you to do things which are anatomically impossible. I delighted as your pharmaceutically-enhanced frame became a liability on the field. With each swinging strike, it felt like another check in the win column for my Red Sox.
But your playing days are over. You’re a television analyst now. And there’s no other way to say it: you’re the best baseball analyst on TV. You offer a player’s insight. You’re articulate and illuminating. You run circles around my beloved David Ortiz on set. Your rapport with him is charming, but it is charming in the same way that it is fun to watch Justin Trudeau talk to Donald Trump. The nature of the pairing is charming. If you look at the individual job performance reviews, the story changes. (I’m sorry, Papi. I don’t mean it.)
And beyond your newfound occupational aptitude, I actually think you’re pretty cool for dating Jennifer Lopez. All of a sudden, you’re hashtag couple goals. You’re somewhat fashionable. Your unwavering support for the turtleneck economy is inspiring.
As a Boston sports fan, with all of the trappings that come with being a lifelong denizen of New England, there are certain, inalienable truths. We will always feel slighted about something in every situation. We believe we are better than most people, while concurrently believing that everyone thinks they are better than us. We claim we wouldn’t move to California because “we’d miss the seasons too much.” And we put an inordinate amount of weight on the success of our sports teams. The perennial beating of the Jets, Bills, Orioles, Rays and occasional LeBron upset mean more to us than it probably should. It is exceedingly rare for someone to leave this territory; to ascend beyond it is unheard of.
You’ve done the unthinkable, A-Rod. You’re above all that mess now.
My apologies.
Your pal,
Lou
