The ever controversial New York Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez
The New York Yankees’ star slugger Alex Rodriguez is one of the most celebrated players in baseball today.
Alex is the youngest player to hit 500 and 600 home-run record, breaking Jimmie Foxx and Babe Ruth’s records, respectively. He also signed the biggest and richest contract in baseball history when he signed on for the Yankees for a whooping $275 million
for a span of 10 years.
If he has had so much of success and respect, then one has to wonder why someone like him would be the cause of unwanted controversies that take away the highlight from him and more attentions is given to him as a celebrity rather than him as a world class
baseball player.
The 2007-08 season and offseason seemed to particularly problematic for him and one controversy after the other seemed to come his way. During an ongoing game between the Boston Red Sox and the Colorado Rockies, Rodriguez and his agent released his contract
negotiation dates which meant that the focus shifted from the game to Alex in a matter of minutes. Both of the parties were heavily criticised for excessive attention seeking and although Alex distanced himself from Boras afterwards, his name had already been
dragged in dirt.
After this slowly died down, rumours about pop star Madonna and Alex Rodriguez’s relationship started emerging. Both of the stars were married to other people at the time and Alex had just had his second daughter. All the accusations were denied by the two
stars but Madonna was spotted at quite a few of Alex’s games and he was seen coming by Madonna’s apartment many times for a period that stretched over months. When these reports were highlighted by the media, both the stars marriages took a toll and Alex and
his then wife Cindy ended up splitting for good in September.
Although these previous rumours took quite a toll on the respect that the fans had for Alex, perhaps the biggest blow came when the Rodriguez steroid scandal broke out in February 2009. The reports came out when federal investigators demanded that the steroid
tests from 2003 be released. These reports were supposed to be destroyed by the Players Union but they weren’t.
There were 104 names that tested positive in that year and the biggest name among them all was of Alex Rodriguez. Then as face saving Rodriguez made a decision to come clean and held a press conference where he admitted to the usage of a certain substance
known as Boli in between 2001 and 2003. He extended a heartfelt apology to his team-mates who were at the conference and his fans. The sad part of this is that when he was being interviewed by Katie Couric on 60 Minutes television show in 2007 he blatantly
denied the use of performance enhancing drugs leading his fans and fellow team-mates to believe that he is someone who he really wasn’t. He even went further on to say that he never felt the need to use them because he has enough natural talent. The disappointed
fans started calling him A-Roid instead of A-Rod.
In Joe Torres’s book narrating his time with the Yankees, he didn’t really project Rodriguez in a very positive light and it came across as if he didn’t think very highly of the star at all. It was also said that even the other employees with the organisation
complained about Alex and didn’t think very highly of him. According to Torre, Alex was a prima donna who made ridiculous requests to be fulfilled by the club attendants. They felt he was phony and that led to him being dubbed as A-Fraud instead of A-Rod.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own and in no way represent Bettor.com's official editorial policy.
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