In Defense of: AROD

The entire world hates Yankees thirdbaseman Alex Rodriguez even more than they do the United States. Every man, woman, and child regardless of race, creed or ethnicity has one thing in common: they're all jealous of baseball's million dollar man. Everyone that is, except for me.

Which is why I'm going to go to bat for AROD and defend him where others, not even Yankees captain Derek Jeter have. Perhaps I'm just a pushover but I can't stand to see everyone take a shot at Rodriguez when he hasn't done anything wrong. Keep in mind that in a steriods era he's one of the few guys hitting homeruns without any help. And yet people still boo him. In fact, in his home ballpark he gets booed more than Jason Giambi, an admitted steriods user. And this in a year in which he won the American League MVP award.

I don't get that. I also don't get how people don't like a guy whose genuiely a nice person and who says all the right things. Perhaps they think he's a phony and doesn't mean what he says. That he quietly is saying the opposite of everything he says in the press. But I don't buy it. He means well, he's just misunderstood because of who he is.

With the expectations being as high as they are for him he can never do anything right. Keep in mind though that he's playing a sport where failing 7 out of 10 times means you're a hall of famer. To hold him to such high standards in a sport predicated on failure is unfair. But that's the way it's been for him so far. And unless he wins a World Series in New York he's going to be considered a failure.

The way I see it though, even without a championship ring he's still the best player in the American League, if not all of baseball. I just wish everyone else would see that. Especially his hometown fans.