A-Rod: I was big jerk on radio

Remember Alex Rodriguez’s infamous radio interview with Mike Francesa in 2013, at the height of the Biogenesis scandal and his legal war with MLB?

So does A-Rod, and he now admits that when he stormed out of an arbitration hearing and into the WFAN studio — he spent 40 minutes in front of a microphone denying performanceenhancing drug use and blasting the “man from Milwaukee,” aka Bud Selig — he was acting like “a big jerk.”

“I think just being a big jerk, you know. … I was really just a big jerk,” Rodriguez said about his various transgressions at a luncheon Thursday with University of Miami students, according to CBS Miami. “I made mistakes, and then doubled down and became a bigger jerk and then went on sports radio and made an ass of myself.”

Rodriguez eventually admitted more PED use in 2014, the year after the interview with Francesa, as he served a oneyear suspension. Rodriguez spent the following two years as a 30homer slugger in 2015 and a worn-out shell of his former self in 2016 before his August retirement. Since then, he has tried to fight his way back into baseball’s good graces.

When asked about the Hall of Fame, Rodriguez said he would “love and relish” to be inducted into Cooperstown, but he is focused “on being a Hall of Fame father and businessman.”

Part of Rodriguez’s reclamation, since the Francesa fiasco, also has come on the airwaves — as an insightful, well-regarded baseball analyst for FOX Sports.