I have something of a history when it comes to holding grudges.
Over the past three years, I have worked quite diligently to become more accepting and less resentful. Most significantly, I have given up any hope I ever had of making my stepfather regretful over the pain he caused my family in general and my mother in particular.
However …
I still find myself hoping that Alex Rodriguez gets booed this weekend.
I realize that this is not what you would call ✌️mature✌️. It certainly isn’t in line with the fact that I’ve started meditating for 15 minutes every morning to get a little more todo zen in my life.
But I can’t seem to bring myself to be the bigger person when it comes to A-Rod.
In case you missed it, he told the radio station where I used to work that he would be part of the 50 Seasons Celebration that the Mariners are holding this weekend at T-Mobile Park.
In terms of performance, he absolutely deserves to be there. He has the highest slugging percentage in team history, he ranks third in batting average and fifth in home runs despite playing only five full seasons with the club.
I’m sure there are plenty of fans who are ready to put aside any hard feelings they had about the way A-Rod left and applaud him for what he did while he was with the team. Those fans are kinder, more gentle souls than I. They may be much happier, too.
I’m never going to cheer for him.
This is not just because he decided to take the money and run off to Texas (though that is where it started).
It’s not just because he admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs in 2009 and then went and took more banned substances later in his career. I don’t see the use of PEDs as some moral failing. They are against the rules, and I believe players should be punished for using them, but I don’t believe it’s worse than other types of cheating that are practiced in sports.
The reason I won’t cheer for A-Rod is that he’s always chosen himself first, and while this has made him extraordinarily wealthy and extremely famous, it doesn’t make me inclined to applaud him.
Then, when you factor in how hard he works to get people to love him despite his selfishness, well, that’s why I remain inclined to boo his ass.
In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever been prouder of Seattle than I was when Rodriguez came back for the first time as a Ranger. The boos. The signs. That guy dangling Monopoly money from a fishing pole.
Did he deserve it?
Hell yeah he deserved it. This is sports. It’s tribal affiliation. He decided to leave “us” and go play for “them.”
What made it so fun was that Rodriguez seemed unaware and unprepared for this reception.
That became something of a trend in Rodriguez’s career.
He has a hard time accepting the (very foreseeable) consequences of his actions. He tends to appear hurt and act as though he’s being put upon.
In 2009, Selena Roberts of Sports Illustrated reported Rodriguez had tested positive for steroids back in 2003. A-Rod then did a mea culpa interview with Peter Gammons, which is best remembered for the orange tone of his face. Rodriguez copped to using steroids after going to Texas, but he attacked Roberts in personal terms, saying she was a stalker and inferring she had broken into his house.
He then called to apologize to Roberts for what he said.
When Rodriguez was implicated in a second PED scandal in 2013 — the one involving the Biogenesis clinic — he was even more evasive and ruthless in trying to keep the depth of his involvement from being revealed.
Rodriguez fought hard to undermine Major League Baseball’s investigation before ultimately accepting the longest PED-related suspension in league history.
Then he did what he always does, which is put on a sad face and stare directly into the camera with a doe-eyed expression as he talks about how lost and mixed up he was.
Last year, I made it through 10 minutes of the first episode of HBO’s “Alex vs. A-Rod” documentary before I had to turn that shit off.
He was talking about “A-Rod” as if it was some identity that was thrust upon him, a Mr. Hyde that eventually subsumed the young and innocent Alex Rodriguez, and I decided I’d had enough.
Rodriguez is one of the most talented baseball players I’ve ever seen.
He meant an awful lot to the Mariners in the 1990s, and the majority of Mariners fans are ready to applaud what he did for the franchise or at least refrain from voicing disapproval over the fact he left.
What I’ll remember, though, is the gap that has always existed between the sweet-faced, innocent image he presented publicly and the self-interested, at times ruthless way he steered his career.
That’s why I won’t ever cheer for him, and why I kind of hope he gets booed.