USA TODAY International Edition
A-ROD IS BACK, AND BASEBALL WORLD IS HAPPY ABOUT IT
Alex Rodriguez played his final baseball game in 2016. In retirement, he’s raised a significant question: Has any athlete’s image ever changed so dramatically, from bad to good?
“It’s absolutely unbelievable,” New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone told USA TODAY. “It’s the greatest rehab ever. If you had told me a couple of years ago that his image would change like this, I would have said, ‘What?’ ”
It was four years ago that A-Rod was a pariah. He was suing Major League Baseball. He was suing the players union. He was suing the New York Yankees team doctor. He even hired investigators to dig up information on MLB officials, including Commissioner Rob Manfred.
Today, he is revered, and beginning Sunday night, Rodriguez will be on center stage each week on the ESPN Sunday
Night Baseball telecast with Matt Vasgersian and Jessica Mendoza.
“I’ve grown a lot and to a degree changed a lot in everything I do, not just baseball and broadcasting,” Rodriguez said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles before his Thursday ESPN telecast with the San Francisco Giants-Los Angeles Dodgers game. “I’m so grateful and appreciative, from four years ago where things were so difficult to where I am today.”
It’s almost as if America has forgotten that Rodriguez was exiled from the game, receiving a historic year-long ban for the use of performance-enhancing drugs, fought MLB officials in court, was banished from the Yankees and likely would never have played again without them owing the final three years of his 10-year, $275 million contract.
Now, he is not only welcomed in our homes but revered, a celebrated former great.
“I don’t think Americans forget,” Rodriguez says, “they just understand better. They can learn from my mistakes. I can talk about my mistakes, own up to them, serving my time, and talking about being a different person.”
Rodriguez, a 14-time All-Star, threetime MVP and World Series champion, is the centerpiece of ESPN’s revamped broadcast team, and Mendoza and Vasgersian are just as thrilled as Rodriguez to be working alongside him.
Mendoza, the only returning broadcaster to the booth, met Rodriguez in 2002. He was with the Texas Rangers and she was an All-American softball player at Stanford who became a gold medal winner.
This could be a season that none of them forget, with Vasgersian replacing Dan Shulman as the play-by-play announcer, Rodriguez taking over for Boone and Mendoza returning.
But make no mistake about it, when the lights and cameras go on Sunday
Night Baseball beginning with Sunday’s Giants-Dodgers game, all eyes and ears will be on A-Rod.
“He has worked very hard for redemption,” Vasgersian says, “whether it’s being on Shark Tank or helping bankrupt athletes or putting stuff on Instagram. People see that he’s a good guy and able to redeem himself.”