Alex Rodriguez Buying Guide
Posted by Adam Bierenbaum on August 24th, 2011
Alex Rodriguez is the starting third baseman for the New York Yankees. He is one of the most loved and hated athletes in all of professional sports. Rodriguez and his family moved to his father’s native Dominican Republic when Alex was four, but they later relocated to Miami, Fla. There he became an excellent ballplayer at Westminster Christian High School, and in 1993 the Seattle Mariners selected Rodriguez as the first overall pick in the Major League Baseball draft. He made his debut with the Mariners at age 18, playing shortstop.
Rodriguez’s first successful season came in 1996, when he accumulated a league-best .358 batting average with 36 home runs and 123 runs batted in. Over the next six seasons with the team, he continued to produce outstanding offensive statistics, most notably in 1998, when he became the third player in league history to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season. Before the 2001 season, when Rodriguez was a free agent, the Texas Rangers signed him to a 10-year $252 million contract, the richest contract ever given to an athlete at the time.
With the Rangers, Rodriguez continued to have great offensive seasons. He won Most Valuable Player honors in 2003 with a .298 batting average, 47 home runs, and 118 RBI’s. After that season he was traded to the New York Yankees for second baseman Alfonso Soriano. In 2005 he posted a .321 batting average, with 48 home runs and 130 RBI’s, to win his second MVP title. In 2007 he became the youngest player ever to hit 500 career home runs. That season was his best yet, he batted .314, with 56 home runs, and 154 RBI’s and he was named league MVP for the third time.
In 2009, Rodriguez’s career became forever tainted when he admitted that used various performance –enhancing drugs from 2001-2003. His preseason revelation was followed by a relatively sub-par regular season that saw Rodriguez fail to hit over 300 home runs and amass 100 RBI’s for the first time since 1997. However. He overcame his longtime reputation of faltering in the postseason by batting .365 with six home runs and 18 RBI’s during the playoffs, and lead the Yankees to their 27th World Series championship.
