Baseball Fans Will Love Alex Rodriguez

I'm going to make a bold prediction here and say that Alex Rodriguez is going to be one of the most beloved players in baseball. That might be hard to believe right now. I understand that Alex Rodriguez gets paid too much money, he has some psychological issues and he hasn't hit in the playoffs but I still think it's true.

First of all, everybody hates the New York Yankees and if you play for the New York Yankees you're going to receive some hate. At the end of the 2007 season Alex Rodriguez will have the choice of opting out of his contract and he will. Not only will Alex Rodriguez be leaving the New York Yankees but he'll have the chance to do what everybody wants to do, stick it to the Yankees. Alex Rodriguez is having his best season yet and to walk away from the Yankees would be a slap in their face and who doesn't want to see the Yankees get slapped around?

Second is the issue of the playoffs. Yes, Alex Rodriguez has not played well in the playoffs but it's really not that big of a deal. Lots of great players have played poorly in the playoffs before; Alex Rodriguez is not the first. It's also not like Alex Rodriguez plays in the playoffs every year and has failed. Alex Rodriguez has played in four playoff series for the Yankees and hit .421in one of them. The last two series nobody on the Yankees was playing well, let's not pin it all on Alex Rodriguez. Alex Rodriguez still has possibly ten or more years ahead of him, he still has plenty of time to make his mark in the playoffs and he will. Barry Bonds didn't have his first good playoff series until he was 37 years old, but when he finally did play well, he made a huge impact on the playoffs.

Speaking of Barry Bonds, Bonds might turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to Alex Rodriguez. Barry Bonds was already not liked but now is even more despised after all the steroid stories. Barry Bonds already has the single season home run record, one of the most beloved records in sports, and now he's inching towards the career home run record. Barry Bonds is so hated that people are dreading that he will break the record, when have fans every cheered against a player breaking such a huge record?

So what does that have to do with Alex Rodriguez? It's simple; Alex Rodriguez is the one guy that can most likely erase Barry Bonds' name out of the record books. Alex Rodriguez is the one guy who can break the single season record and career record for home runs. The single season record will be a difficult task but Alex Rodriguez is already off to the best start in history this year.

As for the all time record, here is a little stat for you. After his first ten full seasons Barry Bonds had 292 home runs. After his first ten full seasons Alex Rodriguez has 424 home runs. Now obviously Barry Bonds had a big spike in home runs the second half of his career but the point is Alex Rodriguez is so far ahead of Bonds at this point that he doesn't need that spike, in fact his home runs per season can decrease and he'll still break the record. Let's just say for argument's sake that Rodriguez hits 50 home runs this year. Alex Rodriguez will be 31 years old with 509 home runs. If Alex Rodriguez plays until he is 40 years old, which is definitely possible and averages just 30 home runs per game then he will finish with 779 home runs, which would currently be the all time record.

If that isn't enough for people to like Alex Rodriguez during his career then fans will at least like him after his career. Baseball fans have a funny way of looking at history. Many players who were not well liked during their careers later became beloved because looking back all the fans saw was an extremely good player. Ten or fifteen years after Alex Rodriguez retires, people won't remember that he had three bad years in the playoffs with Alex Rodriguez or that he was paid 25 million dollars a year, they'll remember he was possibly the best baseball player of all time.