Thursday, July 25, 2013

Why I defend Alex Rodriguez

My pals Pizz and Gardner were having a few yuks-yuks about this morning's story on Deadspin regarding Alex Rodriguez being able to turn anything he touches into crap, or what I call the Sadim touch (it's Midas backwards). From the article:
"Could an athlete have been in a worse (non-murder division) situation than A-Rod found himself when he woke up this morning? He wants nothing more than to be adored and admired for his talent and he is The Worst Person Who Ever Lived as far as most people in and around baseball are concerned. The sport he loves is trying to kick him out for the rest of his life."
As the world prepares itself for an A-Rod suspension with a fervor that I can only compare with being near physical arousal, I frequently find myself defending him, not from the potential charges against him (although I can't wait to see Major League Baseball defend a suspension in front of an arbitrator or in court), but against the vitriol spewed his way.


Now why would I do such a crazy thing?

First, I'll confess, it's because he's a Yankee. Now, I won't reflexively defend every Yankee over everything, but my first instinct is to take the side of one of their players. (And along with that, I continue to be infuriated that David Ortiz remains celebrated to this day; it's kind of a thing with me.)

But it's not just that. It's that I don't feel the "punishment" fits the "crime."

I'm not saying I kicked the crap out of him for that, but he blocked me to make me stop.

I have no illusions about Alex Rodriguez. He's a narcissist. He's an admitted steroid user, and may have done a lot more performance-enhancing drugs than what we know about. He was at least accused of cheating on his former wife. Of course, this makes him different than ... how many people in MLB clubhouses? The fact that Madonna may have been one of his paramours? (Then again, it's Madonna, so maybe not.)

But does he ever have a way of screwing things up! I'd list as many as I could remember, but Sports Illustrated did a nice job of chronicling some of his not-so-greatest moments, although I'm still not sure why anyone should be embarrassed about one of the most-famous actresses in Hollywood feeding him on national TV during the Super Bowl, and I'm not even a Cameron Diaz fan.

So sure, he's a dope. He does one dumb thing after another. But are there any stories about him being mean, like Barry Bonds? Yet he's treated like Bonds, and only slightly better than Michael Vick or Aaron Hernandez. I do think people are willing to admit he never ran a dog-fighting ring or allegedly killed someone ... if you insist.

I've always thought the biggest problem with his personality relates to the Deadspin article ... that he cares so much about his image, and is lousy at cultivating it. The opposite example (of course) is Derek Jeter, who I would say is as image-conscious as A-Rod, but without the capacity for idiocy, which engenders him a lot of goodwill. Seriously, would Rodriguez ever have gotten away with this?

As I wrote previously, I think it all starts with the Texas contract, and everything since then has been shot through the prism of him being a bad guy by people who are angry about it. It's so bad that one of the other pieces of the A-Rod canon is that he refused a trade to the Red Sox, even though it's not true (it was the union that blocked it) and he has never gotten credit for moving to third when he was traded to the Yankees, even though he was a better shortstop than Jeter.

 For the last word on the topic, I'll leave you with Will Leitch.


Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)