He's as polarizing a ballplayer as Pete Rose, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, firmly entrenched in the upper echelon of baseball's most horrendous offenders while somehow maintaining a vocal (if not numerically strong) support base. He's vain to a fault, seemingly unconcerned with the increasingly negative way he's viewed in the public eye. He's a cheater, using banned substances well after they were outlawed. He's a sideshow, always bringing a maelstrom of
articles and blog posts (like the one you're reading now) with every move he makes. We have a certain expectation by now, and he never fails to meet it, rueful though he/we may be about it. In spite of all of this, he's one of the greatest players in the game's history by the numbers, though certainly not by reputation. You can't predict baseball, but you can predict Alex Rodriguez.
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| I can't tell if he's looking at a fly ball or the uphill PR battle he knows he can't win. |
You've heard this story before. You've heard it more times than you can even remember, and you've damn sure heard it more times than you ever wanted. Sadly, the debate raging over Rodriguez's place among the all-time greats is one that promises to continue to burn. With his pinch-hit homer last night against the Red Sox, he finally tied Willie Mays for 4th place all-time on the home run list at 660. This should have been cause for wild celebrations across the baseball world. There should have been a sudden boom of babies named A-Rod. Men were supposed to cheer until hoarse, women were supposed to cry until dehydrated, and children were supposed to be in rapt awe of their hero, their champion,
their favorite baseball player. So where is the fawning, the adoration, the sheer excitement? Where are the gushing tributes on ESPN and MLB/YES Networks? Do I really have to tell you why this isn't the seminal occasion it would be had he done all of this legitimately, the proverbial "right way"?
No, the most intriguing part of A-Rod's ascent is whether or not the Yankees will pay out the $6 million he's due as per that ridiculous contract. They'll claim he violated the terms of the deal by way of his steroid usage, and that argument may carry more weight in front of an arbitration panel than you may think. Yes, the team is contractually obligated. Sure, they knew what they were getting themselves into when they offered that massively misguided pact to a player coming off another MVP-winning season back in 2007. Of course, nobody could have foretold Rodriguez's rapid fall from grace (unless, you know, you realized that giving a 32 year old athlete a 10-year deal would MAYBE not play out so well in its entirety). But does cheating your way to the top justify the benefits that come with such a position? As we know quite well by this point, most people would say it does not.
This could have been another reverential moment in the history of a franchise chock full of them, but it will now serve as an embarrassing display of excess, the world's richest sports team and the world's richest baseball player arguing over what amounts to a rounding error for both. It will stand as the moment that the problems caused by the Steroid Era finally came to a head, with baseball's last prominent juicer trying to clear his name and make his money while everything burns around him. It seems like there's no upper limit to Rodriguez's ability to infuriate everyone who knows his crimes, his self-serving ways perpetuating themselves to no end. While he's assumed the humble, team-player persona in 2015, that doesn't erase the grandiose arrogance and flagrant disregarding of the game's written and unwritten rules he demonstrated in the 15 years (and possibly longer) prior to now. This is a tremendous historical event, and nobody cares purely because of who's involved.
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| Even though the person involved is apparently some kind of telekinetic wizard? That has to count for something... |
It's easy to say that Rodriguez should be ashamed of himself, that he shouldn't accept the money even if the Steinbrenners simultaneously slip into senility and offer it up willingly. In all fairness, there are some who wonder if he truly deserves to keep playing the bad guy, a role he seemed ill-suited for even 5 years ago. "How long can this unrelenting flagellation go on?", you may ask. Well, Rose is still waiting for his reinstatement, 26 years after being banned. Shoeless Joe Jackson, who by all accounts didn't earnestly participate in the Black Sox Scandal in 1919, still remains outside of baseball's good standing nearly a century later. We as baseball fans may forgive to an extent, but we don't forget. Bonds and Clemens won't make it into the Hall of Fame in their lifetimes, if at all, and we really only have speculation and visual "proof" that they took steroids. We have an admission AND several failed tests for A-Rod. His money is in the bank, his numbers eternally carved into the all-time lists. But make no mistake, Alex Rodriguez will never escape the denigration of public opinion. As he continues to inch up those lists (just 54 more until he ties Babe Ruth!), it will only intensify, the jeering of those who once clamored for his mammoth blasts rising towards a crescendo that will be sustained for decades. And he has nobody to blame but the doe-eyed monster staring back at him in the mirror.
So give him the money. Give him what he's owed, because he IS due at least that much. Buster Olney of ESPN put it best when he said this, shortly after Rodriguez's suspension for his involvement in the Biogenesis mess was announced in July 2013:
Really, what harm is there in paying the man? What he gains in monetary value, he's lost in fan perception, a blow much more damaging than anything financial. Alex Rodriguez had a chance to be baseball's golden god, the man deserving of the "greatest of all time" title. Now, he's little more than a punchline. A well-compensated punchline, at least.
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