Your A-Rod Cheat Sheet
A Graceful Exit for the Yankees’ Drama King
This just in: Alex Rodriguez will be unconditionally released from his mega-million-dollar contract with the New York Yankees after Friday’s game vs. the Tampa Bay Rays. He then will become a special advisor and instructor.
“We all want to keep playing forever. But it never ends that way. Saying goodbye gracefully is part of being an athlete,” he said at the Yankees’ news conference Sunday morning. Breaking down frequently, he thanked his daughters and family and the fans “for letting me play the game I loved.”
Follow along to see how it all began via our A-Rod timeline:
- A young, skinny kid out of Miami could play shortstop like no other.
- Turns out, he could hit, too.
- The combination was so appealing, the Texas Rangers offered the HUGEST contract ever, not just breaking the bank, hijacking the U.S. Treasury.
- Mid-career, those home runs are piling up.
- He takes his game to Broadway, but can’t displace Derek Jeter at shortstop.
- So A-Rod takes over at third base.
- But he gives the Captain a run for his money on the back pages of the NY rags (dating everyone from Madonna to Cameron Diaz, after his divorce from teacher Cynthia Scurtis, who he met on a StairMaster at the gym. Now he’s dating Anne Wojcicki, founder of 23andMe and ex- of Google co-founder Sergey Brin.)
- He gets older, doubts start creeping up.
- PEDs or no PEDs?
- After years of lies, an admission.
- Sits out a season for penalty.
- Comes back in 2015 and has monster year.
- But suddenly in 2016, the juice is gone — out of his bat, that is.
- At his news conference, he didn’t deny there were good times and bad: “Hopefully I’ll be remembered as someone who tripped and fell a lot … and still got up.”
