I kind of knew what Alex vs. ARod was going to be, the first time I heard about its existence, and I wasn’t that far off: It’s retired and semi-disgraced baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez, older and wiser, looking back on his career and regrets, in a documentary that is warts and all, to some degree, but ends up making him look good.
That’s sort of what’s become par for the course with the sports documentary production company Religion of Sports, which specializes in this sort of thing, while also setting up a dichotomy that treats “Alex” and “ARod” like they’re two different people. (There was already a documentary about Magic Johnson that also developed the conceit that “Magic” and “Earvin” are two different people.)
Alex vs. ARod, though, is better than most of these, mostly because Rodriguez actually is a fascinating figure, and his story is a compelling one, which also dovetails with about 20 years of fascinating baseball history. And while Enigma, the RoS-produced doc last year about Aaron Rodgers, couldn’t use all the burnishment in the world to make Rodgers look like anything other than a loathsome dipshit, Rodriguez at least comes across as sympathetic and self-aware, at least some of the time. The first part debuted November 6th, with the second and third to follow the next two Thursdays.
Also, its running time of three episodes and about two-and-a-half hours, Alex vs. ARod, directed by Gotham Chopra and Erik LeDrew, is the right length. Derek Jeter, Rodriguez’s old teammate, was the subject of The Captain, which drew seven episodes out of the career of the Yankees shortstop who never said a single interesting or memorable thing in his entire 20-year career.
Rodriguez’s arc, over his 22 years in the majors, is well-known, with lots of ups and downs: The #1 pick in the 1993 MLB Draft, he debuted in the majors the next year for the Seattle Mariners, at age 18. The shortstop emerged, relatively quickly, as the best player in the game, and reaching free agency at a young age, he signed with the Texas Rangers after the 2000 season for a then-record $252 million.
ARod dominated for a bad Rangers team for three years, until Texas decided they could no longer afford him. Then came the fascinating two-step in 2004, when Rodriguez was very nearly traded to the Boston Red Sox; it fell through, he went to the Yankees instead, and agreed to move to third base, next to Jeter. In the following year’s ALCS, the Yankees got off to a 3-0 lead and then became the first team ever to blow one, with the Sox going on to end their 86-year championship drought.
Rodriguez’s arrival in the Bronx was the inevitable byproduct of the smug, terrible attitude from fans and media alike, that the New York Yankees are entitled to acquire every superstar player they want, and that anything less than perfect performance and behavior should be punishable by shunning, bad tabloid headlines, and possibly worse.
Shaky Yankees Years
Rodriguez spent the last 12 years of his career with the Yankees, and over the course of that, the following things happened:
- Rodriguez blew it in the postseason multiple years, leading to whispers that he wasn’t a “true” Yankee, although he went on to lead the Yanks to a championship — the only one of his career, and the Yankees’ last to date — in 2009.
- The New York tabloids exposed A-Rod’s womanizing and frequent strip club visits, leading to his divorce from his first wife, and he later had high-profile alleged relationships with famous ladies like Madonna, Cameron Diaz, and Jennifer Lopez.
- He was outed twice as a user of performance-enhancing drugs. The first time, he admitted it — despite having lied in a nationally televised interview with Katie Couric — and the second time, he fought it, including filing a lawsuit to challenge the longest suspension in baseball history. The PEDs have, and likely always will, kept him out of the Baseball Hall of Fame, even though he’s fifth on the all-time list for home runs.
- Rodriguez was made to retire, just four homers shy of 700, in 2016.
All of this, pretty much, is covered, with Jeter, his ex-wife Cynthia, his now-grown daughters and various family members and teammates.
Cleaning Up
It soon becomes clear that Rodriguez has a certain story he wants to tell: That he was a jerk for much of his playing career, but has grown since, having come to terms with his anger about his father not being around, and also thanks to a since-deceased therapist whom he calls “Dr. David.”
Among the topics not covered? Rodriguez does not speak with much specificity about any of the famous women he has dated. Those rumors about the painting in his bedroom of himself as a centaur? Not addressed.
There’s also very little about Rodriguez’s post-retirement life, which has included business success, an acclaimed broadcasting career and, his successful purchase last year of the Minnesota Timberwolves. I would watch an entire other documentary — complete with burn books, protracted court battles, and more — about that whole saga.
As long as you see it for what is, Alex vs. ARod is a perfectly watchable documentary.
