What does this guy have left, honestly? He is quite possibly the most reviled baseball player, maybe even athlete, to have never done anything actually revolting, like murder or beat his wife into a pulp. The worst actual thing you could say about Alex Rodriguez is that he is a borderline slum lord and, to be fair, that is pretty shitty. But that's not why anyone—everyone—hates him. Everyone hates him because he used PEDs and lied about it. If that's your thing, that's cool I guess. You're allowed to feel your feelings, get viscerally angry, and hold a grudge against a man who is closer to a fictional character than any sort of real person with an impact on your life. Sports have an irrational importance to all of us and we all are borderline insane about it.Here's A-Rod's 3,000th hit/ball. Told the @Yankees I'm keeping it. Got it authenticated by @MLB. This is un-REAL. pic.twitter.com/qEo2qX9Iru
— Zack Hample (@zack_hample) June 20, 2015
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Of course this is a stupid discussion, millionaire baseball player Alex Rodriguez does not need a baseball MLB hilariously and hypocritically had specially marked, and sports overly sentimentalize accomplishments and anything associated with those accomplishments for sappy and financial reasons, anyway. So it's not a major loss; he hit the thing and he's got his memories. But he'll have to hold onto those dearly.One day after he hit the home run, the Yankees held their annual Old Timer's Day. Any player who has ever played on the team, from Hall of Famers, to guys with names like Bubba Crosby, get invited. I cannot imagine a world where Alex Rodriguez plays in an Old Timer's Day game. I cannot imagine a world where Alex Rodriguez is ever speaking before a crowd at Cooperstown. I can't even really imagine A-Rod being involved in some random All-Star Game 20 years from now.He's our generation's Pete Rose and it probably kills him to know once he's done playing, he's truly done with baseball. The end of a playing career is always difficult to reckon for athletes, but many hold on, many remain a part of it. Managing, front office opportunities, whatever Reggie Jackson does for the Yankees. If you want to stay around the game, you usually can. It's hard to imagine that will be the case for A-Rod.He is likely going to retire and go home with nothing more than the money everyone always hated him for. The greatest player many of us will have ever seen play will be hated, or merely reduced to a memory people are forced to put up with.Even sadder than the greatest player many of us have ever seen play being hated by a supermajority of the people he played in front of is the prospect of the greatest player many of us have ever seen being reduced to something people just put up with. He may no longer be met with widespread enmity, but he will never be embraced. He will be, at best, a walking shoulder shrug emoji. Let him have a ball for crying out loud."Where's Jeet's guy? That's the guy I needed," Rodriguez said after the game. "I wasn't so lucky."