Alex Rodriguez is the 2nd best baseball player of all time

Behind Bonds, of course. If you subscribe to the theory that today's players are better in sports across the board due to better and deeper competition, genetics, fitness, nutrition, specialization, money train full time, etc...then it makes sense that the best athletes are relatively young. You got Phelps, Bolt, and Biles from the Olympics, Lebron and Jordan from the NBA, Tom Brady and maybe JJ Watt from the NFL, Federer, Nadal, and now Djokavich in tennis, Clayton Kershaw in MLB, etc...

So that theory would lend itself to recent great position players in baseball being the best in history. Bonds is clearly number 1. I will not hear an argument to the contrary, so let's just take that as a given. But isn't it clear that ARod would then have to be number 2? Truly a 5-tool player who was an offensive monster, putting up both freakish career and individual season numbers, all the while playing probably the most important defensive position better than anyone else in baseball?


He deserves better than what he is getting from the media and fans during his "retirement." Everyone seems to hate him, and I'm not sure why. I think it's seeded in jealousy from that Texas contract. Sure, he went to the highest bidder, but wouldn't everybody have? Not just "most," but literally every single person ever offered such a deal? And I'm pretty sure after a few years of it seeming like the Rangers weren't going to compete, he tried forcing a trade to a contender. Because he wanted to win. More than the money at that point. Didn't his trade to the Red Sox fall through because the MLBPA wouldn't let him give up some of his salary? Didn't he volunteer to play 3rd for the Yankees when he was a vastly superior shortstop than Jeter?

I think ARod is a genuinely good person--he just tries so hard to be liked by everybody that it's kinda off-putting. He seems awkward and insecure--like he needs everybody to like him. It reminds me a lot of Lebron, only ARod hasn't figured out how to pull it off. And you could tell he was pressing so hard in the playoffs, just trying to get the Yankees fans to love him. Yet, he even overcame that and led them to their only World Series Championship since 2000. And the Yankees fans still hate curse his name, maybe even more than Aaron fricking Boone?

I can get the not-liking him. But to loathe him? Hate his guts? For steroids? In fricking baseball? Are you shitting me? The hypocrisy of the baseball media and its fans really knows no bounds. And the awkwardly abrupt end to an amazing career by the 2nd best baseball player of all-time whimpers with a whisper.