Why We Still Hate Alex Rodriguez
By Ben Renner
The Seattle Mariners are spending the day in New York City today in preparation for their weekend series against former-Mariner Alex Rodriguez and the Yankees. Here’s why we as Mariner fans still hate A-Rod.
Alex Rodriguez, if not for the steroid scandals that plagued his reputation in recent years, turning from regional pariah in Seattle to national pariah in New York, would have gone down as a first-ballot Hall of Famer and one of the best players ever in Major League history. His 688 home runs are fourth all-time, behind only Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, and Babe Ruth. He won three MVP awards, 10 Silver Slugger awards, and two Gold Gloves. He has 3073 hits (as of before today’s Yankee game) and 2057 RBIs while sporting a career .936 OPS. He’s pretty good.
But, if you asked most Mariner fans who their least favorite former player is, I’d bet good money the majority will say Alex Rodriguez. Why?
Because A-Rod was a member of the Mariners during the glory days and then left us. Seattle drafted Alex Rodriguez first overall in 1993 and he broke into the majors the next year during the strike-shortened season. In the magical season of 1995, he came up again as the youngest player in the MLB at the time and took over as the Mariners’ regular shortstop in 1996. He was part of the fun Mariner teams of the nineties, along with Lou Pinella, Ken Griffey Jr., and Randy Johnson. We thought he would save baseball in Seattle and bring us a championship, finally!
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We all know what happened next. After the 2000 season, Alex Rodriguez, a free agent for the first time in his career, supposedly told Mariners fans he wanted to stay—then he bolted for Texas and the most lucrative contract in sports history at the time, blasting the second richest contract in baseball back then by $63 million.
Ever since A-Rod left, Mariners fans have thrown Monopoly money at him when he has played in Seattle. We don’t forget. We grew up with this guy. He’s one of the greatest to ever play the game, and he played for us. Then he got selfish. I can’t say that I wouldn’t take $252 million, but then again I’m not a baseball icon playing in a baseball city.
Alex Rodriguez languished for several awful Texas Ranger teams before he bolted again (several years before his contract expired) for the New York Yankees. In 2007, he denied ever using steroids to Katie Couric on 60 Minutes, then, when the evidence against him became overwhelming, he admitted to steroid use in 2009, and that’s when no one believed another word out of his mouth.
He says he’s clean now, but how can we believe him? He had another successful season in 2015 at age 40 and has a shot of overtaking Bonds on the home run list. We hate him because he’s a liar and a cheater. And he was ours.