Before Rodriguez made the retirement announcement, the average cost of nabbing a ticket was $75.92.
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The relationship between Rodriguez and the Yankees is not ending badly.
“No athlete ever ends his career, or her career, the way you want to”, he told reporters while visibly emotional at a news conference.
The Yankees and Rodriguez held a news conference Sunday attended teammates to signal the end of a complex and undeniably dominant career.
Alex Rodriguez said goodbye to the New York Yankees on Sunday, as the team announced it will release him after he plays one more game in the Bronx on Friday. That deal runs through December 31, 2017, the team said. He will receive the entirety of his 2016 salary and the $21 million owed to him in 2017.
A-Rod’s final game will be against Tampa Bay. Ticket prices are already skyrocketing. Rodriguez’s family and friends will be in attendance. Even casual fans could see the Yankees’ focus is on next season.
It should be yet another touching goodbye for such a well-liked Yankee.
The three-time American League MVP and one-time World Series champion has 696 career home runs, and would be a surefire Hall of Famer if not to his multiple links to performance-enhancing drugs. Rodriguez is going out with his reputation in tact.
“After spending several days discussing this plan with Alex, I am pleased that he will remain a part of our organization moving forward and transition into a role in which I know he can flourish”, Yankees Managing General Partner Hal Steinbrenner said Sunday.
Rodriguez, who tabbed the 2009 World Series title as his predominant career memory, did not sound as if that option is in the cards, either. He knows that all his glory comes with a fair share of smears.
That tone marks a considerable departure from the acrimony between player and club in 2013, when Rodriguez was ensnared in the Biogenesis doping scandal following a disastrous 2012 season and following years in which Rodriguez insisted he was done taking performance-enhancing drugs after admitting to taking PEDs from 2001-2003. “But always got right back up”.
In 2010, Rodriguez produced his 13th consecutive 30-homer, 100-RBI season – nobody has more – but it would be his last. Now the front office has his back too.
The most controversial player in baseball is retiring. Now he is going to be missed.
While A-Rod has always offered up plenty of opportunities for well-deserved criticism, he has done just about everything right since that suspension. The press never gets a bad quote out of him anymore.
The Yankees meanwhile are in a rebuilding phase, shedding some veteran players and acquiring young talent. He has nailed on-air television gigs.
The Yankees said Rodriguez will report directly to Steinbrenner and will be assigned to work with players at all levels of the team’s farm system, including numerous club’s top prospects. He loves the sport and it shows every time he talks about it, and that will garner respect from anyone around the game.
At the time of the suspension, Rodriguez maintained he did not use performance-enhancing substances, though when he returned to baseball before the 2015 season, he released a handwritten letter to fans that said, ‘I take full responsibility for the mistakes that led to my suspension for the 2014 season’.
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A-Rod copped his second of three career AL MVP awards in 2005 – his first of two in NY – the following season, but he batted just.133 in a division-series playoff loss to the Angels, saying, “I played great baseball all year, but I played like a dog for the last five games”.
