Alex Rodriguez (a.k.a. A-Rod) left the New York Yankees in a volley of Bronx Cheers. He had admitted to using steroids in 2009, put up absolutely pitiful postseason numbers, and retired from baseball in 2016 as one of the most hated men to ever wear pinstripes.
Then, he took a job with Fox, and once again fans grumbled and some in the media predicted another failure. But Rodriguez soon proved everybody wrong.
He now shares the MLB on Fox set in Los Angeles with unlikely co-analysts such as David Ortiz, late of arch-rival Boston Red Sox. And he’s a natural, working his third World Series now as an analyst. Rodriguez is also in it to win it, reports The Ringer. He’s “notoriously scrupulous and fanatical, often arriving to the studio early, armed with copious notes.” Kevin Burkhardt, who also works on the show, remembers Rodriguez showing up and asking “…how the cameras work and all that stuff. …I was blown away. He’s asking a million good questions about this and that. He had a notebook filled with sh-t.”
As The Ringer‘s Katie Baker argues, the role has spelled “redemption for Rodriguez, who in a few years has gone from punch line to pundit, from embattled to engaging, from disgraced to disarming.”
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