Major League Baseball has often been embroiled in a revisited – and rapidly recurring – chapter of its recent past with a dark shadow cast perennially upon substance abusing sluggers in one of the sports most notoriously beloved figures in history and A-list pop culture celebrities – Alex Rodriguez.
Alex Rodriguez is a highly respected and loathed figure although Rodriguez is unquestionably one of MLB’s greatest players in history courtesy of his rich achievements and bona fide hero status to rabid New York Yankees aficionados in Yankee Stadium.
Alex Rodriguez – who retired from MLB in 2016 – is a 14-time MLB All-Star, an MLB World Series Champion, a three-time AL MVP, a two-time Golden Glove Award winner, a one-time MLB Batting Champion coupled alongside numerous other major accolades which have come to define a surefire MLB Hall of Fame career.
However, it is Rodriguez’ controversial stories which have perennially made headlines that have in turn deflected his vast MLB contributions to effectively tarnish his name in the annals of baseball for eternity.
The dynamic former New York Yankees third baseman, affectionately known as A-Rod, was once the MLB’s highest salaried superstar – who earned $86 million is a four season span – with fever pitch attention focused on previously admitted steroid usage in 2009 which claimed the talented and polarizing New York-born superstar to have used performance enhancing drugs circa 2001-2003; Alex Rodriguez received a controversial sanction again from MLB circa 2013, which subsequently led to a 211 game MLB suspension.
Rodriguez, 41, hit 696 home runs throughout his glittering 22-year MLB career; A-Rod currently ranks fourth on the all-time MLB home run list behind Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, and Babe Ruth.
In 2013, Rodriguez was speculated to be on an exclusive list of biogenesis baseball customers supplied by Tony Bosch; Bosch cooperates with Major League Baseball.
“Guys are just tired of it. The media circus that’s revolving around Alex (Rodriguez) is insane – and we haven’t even seen him. It just keeps going. It’s like a carousel that just keeps going around and around and around. At some point, it has to stop.” an unnamed New York Yankees player stated in 2013.
New York media publication Daily News once branded the controversial A-Rod as ‘The Most Wanted Criminal in Baseball History’, with candidly revealing claims that the former New York Yankees superstar bold face perverted the truth pertaining to the usage of illegal performance- enhancing drugs.
Alex Rodriguez has often denied any active involvement with both performances enhancing drug supplier Tony Bosch and his Florida-based clinic, whilst continuously and fiercely defending his reputation and name along the way.
The 41-year-old New Yorker – who currently dates Jennifer Lopez – has frequently dealt with being under the watchful and harsh scrutiny of the mainstream media in New York as much as his multi-talented superstar girlfriend, whereas the drama follows A-Rod.
However, in the sport of baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out. Should this time-honored tradition and standard notion apply when consideration is fully taken into context for Baseball Hall of Fame committee members who carefully select future baseball Hall of Famers?
