Add Red Sox legend Pedro Martinez to the list of people who find former Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez awkward as a broadcaster.
Pedro Martinez threw baseballs at many a New York Yankees batter throughout his career. Now retired, the Boston Red Sox great is still composing chin music for his previous rivals.
During a live chat event for Bleacher Report, the Hall-of-Fame hurler fielded a question about Alex Rodriguez’s time in the broadcast booth. Martinez began with a compliment, and then candidly reared back and fired a verbal heater at A-Rod’s dome:
“I think he’s good, I think he’s well-prepared,” Martinez wrote. “Would like to see more of a true personality from A-Rod, has always been an enigma where he doesn’t show the true A-Rod, where he’s maybe a little insecure…I think he’s a shy person, someone who’s not going to give you exactly what he’s really feeling.”
Martinez is right on the money. As cringe-worthy as Rodriguez’s HGH-fueled career was, his second coming as a media personality who’s always trying too hard to be cool has been far worse.
A-Rod is amassing awkward moments at a record-breaking clip. Exhibit A is his heretical comments about Philly cheesesteaks while commentating for ESPN in April.
Then there was that time he wore a Red Sox uniform on national TV in 2018. Not long after that, he made a terribly uncomfortable joke to ex-Sox catcher Jason Varitek on a World Series postgame show.
Even those peripherally connected to A-Rod make baseball broadcasts weird. Rodriguez’s fiancée, Jennifer Lopez, hijacked a recent ESPN production to deliver an obviously unappreciated birthday cake:
J-Lo snuck on set to surprise A-Rod with a birthday cake ? pic.twitter.com/sxay2Ygygs
— ESPN (@espn) July 29, 2019
Breaking. Nobody actually had any A-Rod birthday cake. They left it behind. pic.twitter.com/2xQL6l6OT7
— Pete Abraham (@PeteAbe) July 29, 2019
At least one person should be thrilled to read Pedro’s assessment of A-Rod. And that man is Aaron Judge.
Rodriguez seems to have a huge man crush on the Yankees’ right fielder.
A-Rod called Judge a “beautiful man, who’s big and strong and smart” in an interview with the Guardian’s Nick Miller; speaking to Mike Francesa on WFAN, he referred to Judge as “a great looking guy.”
If Pedro is right about A-Rod hiding his true feelings, those comments are meaningless chatter. Judge can then breath a sigh of relief.
The rest of the Yankees Universe, however, must live in constant fear of another awkward A-Rod moment making the Bombers and anyone connected to them look straight-up silly.
