TERRY MOSHER
ALEX RODRIGUEZ
Just a thought: Is Alex Rodriguez deliberately being nice this baseball season to enhance his position with Hall of Fame voters?
What do you think?
My view is he’s playing nicely-nice to do just that. I’ve had a run-in with A-Rod when he was playing for the Mariners and my experience left me flabbergasted that an exceptional talent like him would come up to the press box to try and win me over. I was the Major League official scorer at Mariner games and it dawned on me within seconds why he was in the press box after the game protesting an error on him that I called that was not an error, and was reversed within seconds of my initial call.
A-Rod made me so mad that I dressed him down for being there. It was an obvious phony attempt to woo me. It didn’t work. It only made me more suspicious of him. I had heard previous reports of his partying beyond the bright lights in the off-season and coupled with his obvious phony conversations with media after games, it only cemented my belief that the guy was as phony as a three-dollar bill.
Then there were the revelations that he used chemicals to enhance his baseball performance, and his denial at first and then in a reverse said he did do them but only during certain periods of his career. I don’t think anybody has been fooled by his statements on PEDs. The guy likely has done more with chemicals than what he has so far revealed
It’s sad when you think about it, as I have done. When he first came to the Mariners as a teenage phenom (he was 19), I almost immediately said to myself, “This kid is going to break all the slugging records that Ken Griffey Jr. will set.” And I believed at the time that Griffey would break Hank Aaron’s home run record.
My belief that A-Rod would do that is based on the fact of not just his physical gifts, which were immense, but his bigger physical presence. He is bigger than Griffey, and has huge hands. I figured I was seeing the early stages of a guy who could do down in baseball history as one of the best sluggers of all time.
As we now know, Griffey went to Cincinnati where he had an injury-plagued run that cost him a chance to break Aaron’s record (Barry Bonds, allegedly using PEDs to prolong his career, did break Aaron’s HR mark).
A-Rod has surpassed Griffey in career HRs (666-630) and RBI (2001-1836) and shows no sign of declining physically at 39 (he turns 40 on July 27). The cynic in me only half-jokingly says that PEDs are giving A-Rod a new, young baseball life. The reality is that he likely is not now doing PEDs and that the late career power surge he is showing approaching mid-life is due to his determination to reach the Hall of Fame.
The sad saga of A-Rod is that he didn’t have to do anything unnatural to become one of the best sluggers of all time. He had it all. But for some reason, maybe ego, he must have thought he needed something else to help him get there. Now, no matter what he does, it will be difficult for him to woo enough Hall of Fame voters to reach Cooperstown.
I, as one Hall of Fame voter, will not vote for him. He must do more than play nice to earn my vote.
Be well pal
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.