# A-Rod: your thoughts about him… as an athlete? As a man? Or otherwise? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Tags:** baseball-mlb\ **Created:** [November 23, 2025, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rod-your-thoughts-about-him-as-an-athlete-as-a-man-or-otherwise/1025057 "2025-11-23T00:14:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rod-your-thoughts-about-him-as-an-athlete-as-a-man-or-otherwise/1025057/41 "2025-11-24T22:15:29Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > How much they sucked and that’s why he didn’t want to play for them. Why should he not express how he thinks about the team that drafted him, particularly if he has an alternative? ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rod-your-thoughts-about-him-as-an-athlete-as-a-man-or-otherwise/1025057/42 "2025-11-24T22:51:12Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Oh. Geez. Missed that. Look what A-Rod is doing to our community! > [@SunUp](#): > > Why should he not express how he thinks about the team that drafted him, particularly if he has an alternative? I don’t think that sort of thing is common in baseball. And then he infamously talked bad about Jeter as a player after joining the Yankees. > **[Derek Jeter Gets Candid About His Beef With Alex Rodriguez In Upcoming ESPN...](https://cassiuslife.com/579300/derek-jeter-alex-rodriguez-beef-espn-the-captain/)** > > Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez's bromance, or lack thereof, is legendary, but the two athletes have never spoken about it until now.  ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rod-your-thoughts-about-him-as-an-athlete-as-a-man-or-otherwise/1025057/43 "2025-11-24T23:02:25Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > A-Rod wasn’t any different than all the rest of them. Except some of them are in the Hall of Fame and he isn’t. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > It wasn’t that baseball “encouraged” it, so much as turned a blind eye to it (which, I suppose, could be considered to be tacit encouragement). MLB leadership certainly was enjoying the revival of interest in the sport (which had declined after the labor strife of the early '90s) that the home run surge, and the McGwire/Sosa race to break Roger Maris’s record in '98, had fueled. They may need to break out the steroids again. I’m hearing from way too many people that we aren’t getting to the 2027 season without a work stoppage. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rod-your-thoughts-about-him-as-an-athlete-as-a-man-or-otherwise/1025057/44 "2025-11-24T23:37:52Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > I’m hearing from way too many people that we aren’t getting to the 2027 season without a work stoppage. It does seem like both the players and the owners are operating under the assumption that there will not only be a lockout at the end of 2026 (affecting the 2027 season), but that it is likely to be a lengthy one. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2025, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rod-your-thoughts-about-him-as-an-athlete-as-a-man-or-otherwise/1025057/45 "2025-11-24T23:44:47Z")
> [@SunUp](#): > > Why should he not express how he thinks about the team that drafted him, particularly if he has an alternative? Because it shows you’re an ahole. You call your potential new company a horrible business as a negotiation tool? And his agent Scott Boras made it unprecedentally difficult for the Mariners to contact him as playing hard to get. You can argue all you want about negotiation tactics but playing hard ball in negotiations and being a jerk are not mutually exclusive. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2025, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rod-your-thoughts-about-him-as-an-athlete-as-a-man-or-otherwise/1025057/46 "2025-11-25T00:32:43Z")
As a player, he seemed to take joy in violating the norms of the game, and other players resented it. Slapping the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove and yelling at fielders to distract them have already been mentioned. Another example is when he ran across the pitcher’s mound on his way back to the first base after a teammate hit a foul ball against Dallas Braden of the Oakland A’s. What ARod did was not against the playing rules, but it was a violation of baseball etiquette. It’s considered disrespectful. When it happened, Braden told ARod to “This is my mound, my rubber.’’ When asked about it, ARod said, “I was a little surprised because I never heard that, especially from a guy with a handful of wins in his career.’’ In other words, Braden was beneath consideration for the great Alex Rodriguez. As for never hearing of it, this is something players are taught in Little League. As a player, ARod was one of the best. A fair number of great players have been jerks, like Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Ted Williams, Pete Rose, and Roger Clemens. ARod is not the worst of them, by far. It also appears to me that he’s grown up some since retiring as a player. ---
**Author:** ![Hawkeyeop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/958977/32.png) [@Hawkeyeop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hawkeyeop)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2025, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rod-your-thoughts-about-him-as-an-athlete-as-a-man-or-otherwise/1025057/47 "2025-11-25T01:18:56Z")
A lot of this strikes me as stupid. I don’t recall the Arod drafting saga, but as best I can the issue was Boras and Arod wanted the Mariners to go through the agent and not the player, which seems an incredible reasonable request that the Mariners ignored. Of course licensed professional should be doing the negotiations and not 18 year olds. I couldn’t mind any “disparaging” comments. Those comments on Jeter are incredibly minor. He thought Jeter was lucky in his situation? That’s the big insult? I can see why Jeter didn’t love it, but this is a reason to not like the guy? The “norm violations” seem like looking for ways not to like the guy. Is distracting infielder a hustle play or bush league? I imagine that is based on how much you liked the player. The mound thing just seems like trying to find a reason to be annoyed. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 25, 2025, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rod-your-thoughts-about-him-as-an-athlete-as-a-man-or-otherwise/1025057/48 "2025-11-25T02:50:05Z")
[Moderating] > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Because it shows you’re an ahole. While it’s clear from context that you’re directing this comment towards Rodriguez, not to any member of this board, it’s easily misinterpreted. Might want to work a bit on your phrasing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-rod-your-thoughts-about-him-as-an-athlete-as-a-man-or-otherwise/1025057.md?page=2)