Alex Rodriguez does not see his candid new HBO docuseries as an attempt to burnish his Hall of Fame candidacy by coming clean about his steroid use and other faults.
If anything, the former Mariners, Rangers and Yankees star sees the three-part series, “Alex vs. ARod,” as the opposite.
He was asked by Craig Melvin on TODAY Nov. 6 if the doc is an attempt to get back into the good graces of voters for the Hall of Fame, where he has famously been kept out despite having career statistics dwarfing a majority of Hall of Famers.
“That’s totally fair. I would go the other way,” Rodriguez said. “Now that you saw (the docuseries), I’m definitely not going in the Hall of Fame. I knew the rules, I broke the rules, and if that’s the penalty, that’s completely on me.”
Alex Rodriguez won a World Series with the New York Yankees in 2009. Al Bello / Getty Images
The former shortstop and third baseman was a 14-time All-Star, three-time American League Most Valuable Player, 10-time Silver Slugger winner and a World Series champion with the New York Yankees in 2009. His 696 career home runs rank fifth in Major League Baseball history.
Craig asked Rodriguez, 50, if he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
“Of course, of course,” he said.
He then responded by naming other baseball greats whose link or suspicion of steroid use has resulted in Hall of Fame voters refusing to vote for them despite overwhelming career achievements.
“I mean Barry (Bonds), Roger (Clemens). I think it’s laughable that Roger Clemens, the greatest pitcher of all time, and Barry Bonds, head and shoulders above everybody, including Shohei Ohtani, you name it, Barry Bonds is by far the GOAT, he’s our Michael Jordan — of course he deserves to be there.”
“If you want to put an asterisk or something like that, of course, that’s not my decision to make,” he said in reference to the steroid controversy. “I would certainly vote for those guys. I don’t have a vote on myself.”
Rodriguez said using the docuseries to reignite his Hall of Fame candidacy was the “last thing” he was thinking about.
“That’s not the point of this,” he said.
The series depicts how Rodriguez entered MLB at only 18 years old with the Seattle Mariners in 1994 and then signed what was at the time the biggest contract in baseball history with the Texas Rangers in 2000.
“I think over time I kind of started losing my way a little bit, and then I felt like A-Rod took over,” Rodriguez said.
He calls himself a “recovering narcissist” in the documentary.
“I’m still recovering,” he said on TODAY. “I’ve been in therapy now for over 10 years, and it’s really saved my life.”
Rodriguez described how achieving fame so quickly as a teen warped his sense of self.
“I think your self-awareness decreases and your ego increases, and personally I just didn’t have the tools to have so much so early,” he said.
