Alex Rodriguez: one of the finest players baseball has produced – Part 2
1999 was Alex Rodriguez’s third full season into his professional baseball career and he didn’t let his hitting form go down. Despite injury taking the better of him in 1999 and forcing him to miss 32 games in the season, A-Rod ended up compiling 42 home-runs
and 111 RBIs in the year.
Fans had high expectations from their short-stop and he rightly matched their expectations, winning his third consecutive Silver Slugger Award and becoming an instant favourite at the Safeco Field. Alex's last three full seasons saw him feature in the All-Star
team. The only silverware which he didn’t bag with the Mariners was the MVP.
He continued his scoring extravaganza entering into the new millennium. He piled up 134 runs including 41 homers. The pitchers feared his presence at the plate and his mature play didn’t let him down. He was into his fourth full season and by the end, had
completed three of them with RBIs of 100 plus. Alex was recognised for his performance by naming him the Major League Player of the Year. His MVP drought continued and he finished third in the MVP voting.
A-Rod completed his seven years at the Safeco Field and became a free agent at the end of the season. He moved on, signing a 10-year money loaded contract with the Texas Rangers. The contract amount, a massive $252 million was $63 million more than any other
baseball contract in the history of the game.
Even today, almost a decade since Rodriguez left the Mariners; he is greeted with boos at the Safeco Field. The fans, who had loved their short-stop once, now flash monopoly money whenever he comes out to bat. Rodriguez, in his justification, had his agent
Scott Boras to blame for. Alex commented that he was lured into opting for more money by his agent.
Records are meant to be broken. With his stint with the Rangers, Alex came true of this. He broke records at the speed of thought. In 2001, during his first season at Texas, he amassed 133 runs and smashed 52 home-runs. His 52 home-runs were the most ever
by any short-stop.
Alex surpassed the Hall of Famer Ernie Banks who had managed 47 homers in a single season. Rodriguez’s 201 hits that year placed him at Number four on the exclusive list of MLB players who had scored 50 plus home-runs and 200 plus hits in a single season.
He won his fourth consecutive Silver Slugger Award apart from being awarded with the league’s most offensive player and Josh Gibson Legacy Award for most home-runs.
He improved his personal 52 home-run record in the 2002 season finishing with 57 home-runs and 142 RBIs. He repeated what he had achieved in the 2001 Awards and went one step ahead, also bagging the Gold Glove Award.
His MVP drought finally ended in 2003 when he became the youngest player to hit 300 career home-runs at the age of 27. With only ten years into professional baseball, records were already flooding his shelf and age was on his side.
2004 saw A-Rod move from the Rangers to the New York Yankees at a new position and with a new kit number. The deal, in 2007, turned out to be his careers and baseball history’s most enduring and lucrative deal with a mammoth $275-million offer with various
rewards for surpassing milestones. Since then, he has won the MVP award two times, in 2005 and 2007, taking the total tally to three.
Rodriguez, who had previously denied using performance-enhancing drugs repeatedly, confessed in February 2009 of using steroids. He made his confessions on a popular television program and said that he had used the drugs from 2001 to 2003. Alex cited immense
pressure to perform as the reason of using the drugs.
Alex has never settled for mediocrity. He has a solid bedrock of humility as his foundation. Whichever teams he has represented have thrown immense responsibility on him and responsibility, not to forget is the price of greatness.
Tags: