Alex changed how we view our sports ‘heroes’

DETROIT — Alex Rodriguez should be remembered as one of the best baseball players ever.

That he might well do s o, depending on how our mores evolve through time, speaks to his greatest contribution to American society. Quite simply, A-Rod can stop playing, if this week truly proves to be it for him, knowing that he has changed the moral compass of professional athletes like no one before him or since.

The black-and-white notion of “heroes” in one corner and “villains” in the other has been blown to bits. A-Rod was both, sometimes simultaneously. While he didn’t intend to do this, by hanging around for such a long time — and by creating controversy as naturally as a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly — A-Rod forever clouded the notion of whom fans should and shouldn’t support. For that, we should be grateful. Forget about all of the bouquets he has received in the last year and a half, after ending his entertainingly foolish legal battle with the Yankees and Major League Baseball. What’s more important to recall is that during the height of that battle in 2013, when A-Rod was playing for the Yankees as he was disparaging them, he still received a healthy percentage of cheers and love in The Bronx. Many understood that his case carried more complications than “The guy CHEATED!!!” They appreciated that no one in that swamp — not Bud Selig, not Yankees ownership and not opposing players — had arrived there without acquiring their own crosses to bear.

The love of the game that convinced the Yankees to hire A-Rod as an advisor and instructor is a connective tissue to the drive that pushed him to repeatedly use illegal performance-enhancing drugs. And to slap the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove in 2004. And to distract Blue Jays infielder Howie Clark from a pop fly with a shout of “Ha!” in 2007. As Dr. Zweig (Anne Bancroft) once said on “The Simpsons” co nce r ni ng t he mult i pl e re a - sons behind Marge’s fear of flying, “It’s all a rich tapestry.” You don’t get to cherry-pick the good quali t i es from any of us, and larger-than-life celebrities aren’t immune to that rule.

All of A-Rod’s most glaring transgressions resulted from him wanting badly to win. Games. Most Valuable Player awards. Approval. In the game of life, these go down as misdemeanors. Especially since, in the game A-Rod played to make him rich and famous, too many instances exist of people not doing all they can to win: Associating with gamblers. Not signing players of color. Colluding with fellow owners to keep salaries down. Refusing to move from shortstop even though your team has just acquired a superior shortstop for whom you happen to hold contempt.

Only the finger-wagging est of the moralizers didn’t come around to at least appreciating A-Rod for getting knocked down and getting up again, again and again — even though many of his setbacks proved self-inflicted. He wound up winning over Selig’s successor Rob Manfred and Hal Steinbrenner so convincingly that he received a soft landing after his skills finally abandoned him. He provided hope for all wrongdoers that you could rewrite your story.

Here at Comerica Park, after the Mets defeated the Tigers, 3-1, Curtis Granderson saluted his former Yankees teammate.

“Very smart baseball guy ,” Granderson said. “The things he talked about at a baseball level were probably the best and most intriguing of all the guys I ever played with, whether it be talking about a future opponent or a future process or a current situation or something’s that happened to get to this point.”

He could be a great teammate when it came to stuff like that. He could be a terrible teammate, forcing them to answer awkward questions about his behavior and committing countless other transgressions. He could be admired. He could be loathed.

A-Rod did what an athlete is supposed to do. He entertained the heck out of us. Go find your heroes somewhere else.