Farewell, Alex

For anyone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, Alex Emmanuel Rodriguez was one of the great professional baseball players you had a chance to lay eyes on. A-Rod was a true talent and joy to watch play, he could hit, run, field (great shortstop, average third baseman. Thanks for nothing, Michael Young), and lead a clubhouse. Its safe to say his career .295 average, 696 homeruns (and counting? Mhm), 2,086 RBI, 329 stolen bases, and .930 OPS speak for themselves. Unfortunately, due to the old men yelling at the clouds who hate steroids/fun, a lot of what he brought to the table was over looked. By all accounts, he was a great teammate and a great leader to the younger guys in the clubhouse. The Yankees hadn’t requested that he stay with team to be an advisor for nothing, he will be one of their strongest assets when it comes to cultivating all the young talent they have, e.g. Clint Frazier, Aaron Judge, etc.

Alex being a top five all time baseball player of mine (1. Ken Griffey, Jr. 2. Alex 3. Nomar 4. Pedro 5. Bryce Harper) I find myself having to defend my fondness of him due to the steroid issue. Anyone who knocks any of the greats for their usage is an idiot who doesn’t understand the landscape of sports in the 90s and 00s. I am a firm believer that they don’t add much of any advantage for the player, everyone used, and they should be legal. Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Jose Canseco, Alex Rodriguez, etc. could put asses in seats, and that’s what matters. In an all-time spin zone, I even feel bad for Alex. Being a top young prospect and coming into a league that was led by a bunch of juice monkeys, there is no denying there is pressure to do whatever he had to do to compete and live up to his hype. Alex chose to juice to compete, even though he would have been great regardless, and that’s a decision hell have to live with. However, I don’t think he’ll lose too much sleep looking at his bank account filled to the brim with his $380MM career earnings. As someone who got the chance to attend his final game in Yankee stadium it was nice to see how electric the crowd was that came out to send him off, steroids didn’t give him that, he earned it. Alex made baseball great, now its up to Bryce to make it great again.

PS. You never have seen true joy until you watch me come across a picture of Ken Griffey, Jr. rubbing Alex’s shoulders while they played for the Mariners on google images. Just a couple of goats scratchin each others backs.

Double PS. I take that all back, during his walk up for his first AB in his final game at Yankee Stadium, they had a video montage where his swings would start with him as a young gun in the light blue Mariners jersey/grey vest jersey and fade into him in the present in his Yankee jersey and I almost cried. That’s true joy.