Alex vs ARod (2025) s01e03 Episode Script
Episode 3
1
[TV static drones]
[bright tone]
[snow crunching]
- A-Rod is
a Shakespearean figure.
[soft suspenseful music]
He's one of the greatest
players who ever played.
[cheering]
Big, strong, good-looking,
the whole thing.
This guy was
an immortal player,
but he also was an incredibly
flawed individual.
- You know,
I say this proudly.
I don't think there's ever
been a baseball player
that has loved the game
like Alex has.
You could say
whatever you want,
say he took this,
he took that.
At the end of the day,
he's gonna put up numbers.
He's gonna hit the baseball.
That's what he was born to do.
[cheering]
This wasn't about baseball.
I think this was about life.
One thing I've definitely
learned in life,
the truth is always
gonna come out.
It might take 30 years,
it might take 2 years,
it might take 40 years.
The truth is gonna come out,
and you're gonna have
to deal with it at some point.
- You know, Alex Rodriguez
is just a seminal player.
You know, it comes along
once in a generation,
maybe a lifetime.
[cheering]
You take away
all the extraneous nonsense,
he's one of the best players
who ever lived.
Again, it always begs
the question to me--
and I wonder if he's
lying alone at night,
looking up at the ceiling--
why did I ever do any of it?
♪
- Why rich and powerful
people cheat, part one.
There is an arrogance that
often comes with power.
The aura of power
surrounding you
makes you feel immune
from consequences.
You feel you can do things
that mere mortals
are forbidden to do.
You see other wealthy people
living a façade in public
and a different life
in private.
The key to pulling this off
comes from keeping your
public and private life
as separate as possible
and creating an image
that shields you
from a closer scrutiny.
Yeah, this is a--
a train wreck ready to happen.
This whole idea that you're
one person
in front of the camera
and you're a completely
different person off-camera.
And that's exhausting,
'cause you're trying to keep up
with the shit
you're trying to get away with.
Not fun, and full of
anxiety and stress.
And there's a sense,
I won't get caught,
'cause you actually think you
are better than other people.
There's nothing more stupid
than that, right?
- You learned that the hard
way, though, didn't you?
- I did learn that
the hard way.
♪
- And now a great
New York tradition,
time to hand out
one of New York's
most prestigious honors,
the keys to the city.
[cheering]
- I mean,
the thing when you win,
especially if you win
in a place like New York,
there is a celebration tour
that can last five months.
And then you're like,
okay, this is fun,
but I got a season that
I gotta get ready for in 2010.
We gotta--we gotta repeat.
- Alex, I know it's a cliché,
but what a difference
a year makes.
Last year,
I remember we sat here
and you were apologizing
to the fans and all that.
And I mean, how much different
is this season for you?
- Well, it's much different.
And, uh, you know, I'm in
a much better place right now.
I know that last year,
we sat here
- In the past, the pressure
for him cracked pipes.
In 2009, the pressure
created a diamond.
You know, you just
shut everybody up.
Everybody that doubted you,
everybody that said,
yeah, he's the creation
of pharmaceuticals--
he did it.
[pensive music]
Now, when spring training
was starting,
I said, well, he's gonna have
a monster year,
because, you know,
he's free of everything.
You know, he's won
his World Series.
What do you think?
- I hope so.
- Yeah?
- I hope so, yeah.
- Another MVP,
another world championship?
- The only goal is the
same goal we had last year,
was A, to have a lot of fun,
play as a team.
And I look forward
to defending a world title.
- You seem happy.
- I am happy. [chuckles]
♪
- High drive,
center field deep.
Going back rows.
Looking up.
See ya!
There it is!
Number 600!
Alex Rodriguez,
the youngest man
ever to get to 600 home runs.
- I felt like the World Series
came and went.
- And that one is driven deep
to left center field.
Going back, Van Every.
On the track, at the wall!
- I was basically
at the pinnacle
of my baseball career.
But, I mean, there was just--
there was a lot going on
at the time.
- I think a lot
comes with success.
I mean, you check
on guys, you know.
How are you doing?
Everything okay?
- I think in 2010,
there was a big hangover
from winning the World Series.
[umpire shouts indistinctly]
- And Rodriguez
caught looking.
- I had never seen Alex start
losing the love of the game,
like not wanting
to train as much
or not wanting
to practice as much
or not wanting to be
around baseball as much,
and that's what
I saw happening.
- The Texas Rangers,
our American League champions!
- And I also think that
he was struggling
with where he was
at a personal level.
You know, now you're getting
older, the kids are older,
and you're on the road a lot.
And it was tough.
His divorce was tough.
- We functioned
very quickly co-parenting.
The girls, you know,
in order to see him,
they have to travel,
and they're so small,
so I would travel with them.
He would come back
and he would--you know,
if he had a day off,
he would come.
And he was amazing
when he was present.
It's just that those times
were just so select.
- Valverde deals,
and a swing and a miss!
Valverde strikes out
Alex Rodriguez,
and the Detroit Tigers
are headed to the American
League Championship Series
- Something was off
with my game,
but it was less about that
and more about
self-development.
From the time
I was drafted at 17,
six years later,
here comes the 252.
Six years later,
here comes 275, controversies,
the championship after that.
Everything was moving so fast.
[snaps fingers]
It was a blur.
I could have been really
mature on the field
but that doesn't mean that
my off-the-field development
was caught up to that.
And there was
a huge disconnect.
I had a lot of work to do.
As a person,
I had a lot of work to do.
[airplane engine roaring]
Around that time, in 2010,
I was on a flight
with a friend.
I expressed to him that I was
going through a tough time.
And he said, well, I have
someone you should meet,
but this guy is like nobody
you've ever met before.
[ethereal music]
My first appointment, I flew
out to Evergreen, Colorado,
this beautiful small town,
kind of in the middle
of nowhere.
♪
It was cold, it was snowing.
I didn't know what to expect.
[breathing heavily]
[exhales]
Oh, man.
Oh.
♪
You know, I never
came in this house.
We would always go
around to his office.
I mean, it's a bit shocking
being back here.
Dr. David has passed,
and that's a tough pill
to swallow.
Everything's pretty much
the same.
He had his desk,
two computers, third one here.
The couch was over here.
We would do our sessions.
And he had a chair right here,
and he has a little table.
He would always have,
like, water there,
but I never saw him
eat anything, drink anything,
or ever go to the bathroom.
So at one point,
I asked him, are you human
or are you just a robot
with no emotions?
Yeah, he would never laugh
at any of my jokes, so.
The minute
you're around Dr. David,
you just know he's different.
He just--very, very
serious person, an academic,
and has done retreats
all over the world.
I wish it was a retreat.
[chuckles] It wasn't a retreat.
There's so much significance
in this room for me.
I'm just picturing Dr. David.
I mean, I can feel him
all over the room.
Interesting.
[contemplative music]
I think in many ways,
it feels like a lab
or a batting cage
where I got so much work done.
He described it
as rewiring the brain.
And he said, if you start this
process, you have to finish.
You can't stop in the middle,
because it'll be even worse.
I was like, okay,
this sounds intense.
That first session
was really about
feeling each other out
a little bit.
There was a lot of, like,
volleying and back and forth.
Alex: I'm having
a hard time at work.
I'm trying to get all these
people to do this and do that,
and they're not doing it.
Dr. David:
have you ever thought
that you're a terrible leader?
Alex: what?
Maybe you don't know
how to lead people.
Do you think people
respect you and trust you?
Alex: all right,
I need a fucking break.
I'm going to the bathroom.
That was my
favorite place to go,
'cause it was the only time
he would give me a break.
- [laughs]
- And then I would,
like, stall.
Oh, my God, it's so weird.
I mean, he was such
a truth-teller,
and I wasn't used to that.
He would just throw arrows
right between your eyes, right?
Like, when you talk you sound
like you're full of shit,
'cause you are.
And, like, in hindsight,
I was so fucking slippery,
and I'd think
I can bullshit him.
I'd think I was
smarter than him,
and he just would
never let me slide.
And he said something
to me that was like,
you're so underwater that
you can't even see straight,
and you're
running out of time.
[clock ticking]
Like, the fuck does that mean?
I felt like early on,
I didn't understand
what I was doing here.
And after the first week,
I was flying home.
And I thought to myself, what
a fucking waste of my time.
[exhales]
What the hell
does Dr. David know?
What brought me back?
Well, I wasn't gonna quit.
That's what brought me back.
You know, I was
so damn stubborn
that I'm like, all right now.
It's like facing
a tough pitcher.
He's not gonna intimidate me,
no matter how much--
I know he's trying to drive--
[laughs] I know he's
trying to drive me here,
and he's hoping that
I never come back,
but I'm gonna come back
and make him miserable.
And it was just a battle,
then I made it a competition,
and that's really
what brought me back.
Like, I'm never gonna quit.
That tells you how
fucking lost I was.
[crowd chanting]
- Jeter at second. One out.
3-2 to Rodriguez.
It hit him! Oh, my goodness.
[crowd booing]
- Looked like he hit him
with the changeup,
but Felix's changeup
is 88 to 90 miles an hour.
And that one, he's in a
lot of pain right there.
- Alex, you just talked about,
yesterday,
how well you were
swinging the bat.
How much more difficult
is this to take,
how you've been playing
offensively lately?
- Yeah, it's difficult.
[tense music]
Tough break.
- What have they told you
as far as the time frame?
- Haven't told me anything.
Just fractured.
Aging is never fun,
especially when you're going
through--through injuries.
For so many years, I mean,
I could go through a wall
and just get back up
and just keep playing.
- Alex Rodriguez is
going to have surgery Monday
to repair the torn meniscus
in his right knee.
- I was a workhorse,
and I loved to play every day,
and I think those injuries
started piling on
and contributing
to other injuries.
- 3-2.
Popped up.
- On the changeup.
And Alex, frustrated,
slams the bat.
Ooh, looks like something
might have happened
right there coming out
of the box.
Little wince.
- You think
after he slammed the bat,
or something
with his leg, John?
- As I got into my mid-30s,
all those surgeries
and rehabs,
they started definitely
getting to me.
I had knee surgery in '99,
I believe, my left side.
And it was a pretty
simple recovery,
so I'm hoping for the same.
Except I'm a little older now.
I wanted to be able to get
out of bed and not be in pain.
And I just wanted, in the worst
way, just to be able to play
and, you know, post up
every day for my team.
Post-World Series, my--
a person that was close to me
kept saying, hey, I know
you don't feel good.
You're not sleeping as good.
You should meet this guy that
I wanna introduce you to.
[waves lapping]
We're down in St. Pete
playing the Rays.
He says, hey, that guy's here.
He actually has a clinic
right down the street.
If you wanna see him, I can
bring him up to the room.
And that's when I met Tony
for the first time.
His hair wasn't brushed.
He looked like
he hadn't slept much.
I was like, who is this guy?
He said he was a doctor.
He's like, why don't
you take off your shirt?
So I take off my shirt.
He's like, oh, yeah.
Oh, you need a lot of help.
You need a lot of work.
You need a lot of work.
Where does it hurt?
He starts moving my leg
around a little bit.
And basically I said,
I'm not sleeping that great,
my metabolism is not that good,
um,
and I'm not recovering
well at all.
He's like,
I have something for you.
And he said, HGH.
And I said, okay, tell me more.
He goes, well, you just
put it in your stomach,
and you'll be able
to sleep better.
You're gonna recover better.
It's good for your skin.
Men and women use it.
Athletes
and non-athletes use it.
So there's--I'm getting
a little bit of an education.
And I was like, nah, you know,
I'm good, I'm good.
I don't need to do that.
And then probably
a few weeks later,
they were both asking me,
like, you know,
why not give it a try?
At that point, I knew
that if I did this,
I would be breaking
a Major League Baseball rule.
So I kept saying no.
[soft tense music]
But I wanted to get out there
so badly and play.
The Yankees are paying me
a shitload of money.
There's an embarrassment,
looking your teammates
in the eyes
and not being able
to play every day.
At the time, I knew it was
a very, very risky thing to do.
But if this is actually
gonna make me feel better
and help me get out of bed
and help me not be in pain,
then fuck it.
I'll risk it.
I went into it
like, okay, I just do this
for the rest of
the year, for like,
a month or month and a half.
And hopefully, you know,
this offseason,
my hip can feel better, and I
can never look back, you know?
And then once I tried it
you're in the wrong side,
and you broke
a Major League Baseball rule.
So I knew I did it,
and I knew that
I was breaking a rule.
And it was like that moment
where you go too far,
and you're just like, oh,
can't take it back now.
- A report published
in the "Miami New Times"
says this clinic,
called Biogenesis,
was a pipeline to PEDs
for several players.
- The first time
I hear of Biogenesis
is when someone calls my phone.
They told me that, you know,
some guy was owed money
and he was gonna
whistleblow the people
that were involved
in Biogenesis.
- I'm around Alex a lot,
and I had never seen
that guy ever around Alex.
I think Alex was
probably embarrassed
that the guy was around
and he'd keep him hidden.
I don't think Alex ever
went to the clinic.
I think that guy Tony
went to see Alex.
- At the time, I'd never even
heard of this publication.
It wasn't like "The New York
Times" or anything.
So I was like, maybe it's a
24-hour story, or 48 hours.
But it certainly wasn't that.
- Alex Rodriguez
among 20 players
believed to be connected to a
now-closed Miami-area clinic.
- The highest-paid player
in the history of baseball
might be one step away
from losing it all.
- And then that's when
all hell broke loose.
- A-Rod.
- A-Rod.
- A-Rod.
- What in the world
is A-Rod thinking?
- It took off like a wildfire.
- A-Rod insisted he stopped
doping back in 2004,
and that he's always
been clean as a Yankee.
- I was stunned.
I was shocked.
I was kind of
ticked off at him.
You know, why would
you do this again?
I was his biggest supporter.
I like him personally.
After what happened in '09,
the test and everything,
why would you go there again?
- Could this
theoretically be the end
of A-Rod in Yankee pinstripes?
- It was just an avalanche
of, like, bad news,
worse news, awful news.
- The penalties
are the penalties.
50 games, a hundred games,
three strikes and you're out.
- I was like, oh, man,
I did it this time.
- A-Rod became, especially
the second time around,
the poster boy
for steroid abuse.
He really did.
- Is baseball gonna
get serious or not?
This is a major watershed
for Major League Baseball.
And I think A-Rod deserves
the brunt of all of this.
- This has been
a shadow that has been
over Major League Baseball
for a couple of decades.
They didn't handle this thing
right from the beginning.
If you go back,
they were sitting here
with a bunch of star players
who had cheated.
You don't have to be
Sherlock Holmes
to find these guys, okay?
Everybody knew
what those guys were doing,
and they couldn't ever get
the genie back in the bottle.
- Do you solemnly swear that
the testimony you'll give
before this committee will be
the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth?
- Finally, there comes
a point where Congress
gets involved
and smacks baseball around,
and smacks Selig around.
And then you got these guys
like Palmeiro and McGwire
and Sosa
embarrassing themselves,
and Selig says, you know what?
I've had enough of this.
We're gonna get tough.
- I decided to do
this investigation
so that no one could ever say
that baseball had something
to hide.
Because I certainly did not.
- Baseball now was gonna
be really hard on everybody
after being so lax.
- I tried reaching out
to Bud Selig
and just get
in front of him one-on-one
and talk this thing through
before lawyers got involved
and all this other stuff.
I asked for two meetings,
and he said no twice.
- I was scared
'cause I knew this time around,
they were gonna come after us
like there's no tomorrow.
- Commissioner Selig
told Rob Manfred
to do what he had to do to get
to the bottom of the scandal.
- Biogenesis then became,
I would say, a circus act.
MLB had investigators
down here knocking on doors,
trying to get documents.
People were paying people off.
- I have private investigators
all over the office,
people following
our receptionist in the car,
a helicopter over our building.
- I mean,
there's just nowhere to hide,
and it just kept getting
bigger and bigger.
- They did things
that you're saying,
baseball can't be
doing this stuff.
I mean, they bought stolen
evidence to try and get him.
- A gentleman had
the Biogenesis documents,
and we bought them.
- How much?
- $100,000.
- I'm not saying A-Rod
didn't make his bed.
He did.
But it was a good way
to show the public
that they were gonna
cleanse the sport.
And it was an easy mark.
He made himself an easy mark.
He really did.
- Some breaking news tonight
within Major League Baseball.
We are learning that baseball
is about to announce
its most sweeping set
of suspensions
for use of
performance-enhancing drugs.
- At some point, they finished
their investigation,
and now we were
just on wait mode
to see what the penalties
were gonna be.
And you heard anything
from 50 games to lifetime ban.
So I remember the day
and the call.
The phone rang,
and it was Tony Clark,
the head of the union.
He goes,
just wanna let you know
we got the suspension number.
And he said, it's 211 games.
[tense music]
And I said, 211 games?
I said, Tony,
how can that be possible?
Like, I'm 40.
That means that I'm done.
They've--I'm retired.
And then I said,
did everyone get the same, 211?
And he said, no,
everyone else got 50 games.
And, uh--and I said, so how--
we're all in the same union.
We all made the same mistake.
How does one get 50
and somebody else
gets more than 4X?
- What they have said is that
they have what they believe is
a convincing case
against A-Rod
that includes not only his use
of performance-enhancing drugs,
but that he tried to subvert
their investigation into it,
and maybe even tried
to recruit some other players.
And that,
for all those reasons,
his penalty will be
more severe than the others.
- It was confusing,
because on one end I made--
I made the mistake,
and I should be penalized.
But I kept hearing
his voice, 211, 211.
I'm like, I couldn't
even comprehend, at 39,
40 years old,
how you can be suspended
for a year and a half.
- Now a Yankees official
tells me
they do expect him to appeal
any suspension,
which means that
his case will be heard,
then determined,
by an arbitrator.
It could take
over a month to settle.
- Of course,
I have to fight back.
I almost felt like
I had no choice.
In one big scoop, it was like,
okay, no Hall of Fame,
lifetime suspension,
and the Yankees
were still on the hook
for over $100 million.
I will say this--
there's more than one party
that benefits from me
not ever stepping
back on the field,
and that's not my teammates,
and it's not the Yankee fans.
So the fight was no longer
about, did I do it?
The fight is like,
this is an overreach, and why?
And what's the agenda?
- Just look at the scenario.
A-Rod stays on the field.
He plays during
an appeals process.
But what happens every time
he takes the field?
Isn't all the talk
gonna be about steroids,
scandal, and A-Rod?
- Alex, do you have anything
to say about what happened?
- Oh, there's no question
about that.
It's gonna be
a circus tonight.
But if A-Rod
is smart about this,
his comments are gonna be
as conciliatory as possible,
and he's gonna keep saying,
we'll just let
the appeal play itself out.
- Guys, do we have
any water anywhere?
- We can get--get you some.
- Okay.
[camera shutters snapping]
- Hey, could you grab a water?
Could you grab a water?
Thank you.
- Go ahead.
- Steve and Dave.
- Alex, in 2009, you asked fans
to judge you from that point
forward in your press
conference at spring training.
What would you say to them now,
the people who
took you on your word then?
- Well, I--I would tell them
that, you know,
please have some patience.
Let this process play out.
- You didn't deny the charges.
Do you deny that you use PEDs?
- Like I said,
I think we'll have a forum
to discuss all of that.
- If you didn't use PEDs,
why don't you just say it?
- I--there's a lot of things
that have been thrown
to the wall, and at some point,
we'll sit in front
of an arbiter and give it our--
give our case.
And that's as much
as I feel comfortable
telling you right now.
Like anything else, you gotta
just put your blinders on and--
and do your job.
- On the outside,
it appears that Alex Rodriguez
is dealing with it,
managing, playing baseball.
But so much swirling
around him right now.
- The only place he can't
get asked the question--
unless it's by an umpire--
about something
is on the field.
Everywhere else he goes,
he goes home and watches TV,
any sports channel
is talking about Alex.
- Now batting for New York,
the third baseman,
number 13, Alex Rodriguez.
[crowd booing]
- I was somewhat prepared
for that type of reaction,
because at that point,
I'd been going
to opponents' ballpark
and getting booed everywhere.
That's just par
for the course.
[cheering]
[tense music]
♪
But this was different.
This wasn't about, like, hey,
you're gonna beat my team.
This was like, hey,
I don't like you.
So it was different.
[crowd chanting]
[cheering]
- Well, this is the first time
we've seen something like this
since Alex Rodriguez returned,
and I think we can say
with some certainty what
the intent was after Dempster
hit him on the 3-0 pitch.
I mean, this is
a little bit unusual.
- It's uncomfortable.
You knew this was gonna
happen at some point.
- And it affected you.
- Yeah, but on the field--
I'm okay on the field.
It's kind of a strange thing.
Like, on the field,
I can roll with anything.
- Now he hits a deep drive.
Straightaway center field,
and gone!
[cheering]
He's hit a lot of them
in his career,
but I bet you he enjoyed
that one more than most.
- It was a hard day today,
that's for sure.
A long day.
- How angry were you
when you got hit?
- Yeah, I was pissed off.
- Another hit for Rodriguez.
- Considering how many
players have spoken out
about you playing
through your suspension,
are you concerned
about this moving forward?
- My hardest time
was off the field.
You know, dealing with
all the distractions.
It's been crazy.
I'm gonna do my very best
to focus on baseball.
Every day there was, like,
20 different stories.
Calling you all these names,
calling you Pablo Escobar,
calling you Whitey Bulger.
Somebody else said
there's a RICO case open,
like, all these kind of
very aggressive allegations.
I mean, we live in a world
where people believe
everything they read.
And I'm like, dude,
I just crossed the line.
But like,
I'm not Whitey Bulger.
Like, I've never committed
a crime in my life.
- Alex Rodriguez here
has created a stir
as he made his way
to the batter's box.
- That was tough for us.
My job, I said before, was to
try to limit distraction,
and in this particular case,
I mean, how do you stop it?
I feel bad, like I said.
I mean, I'd much rather
not be sitting here
talking about suspensions.
I'd rather be sitting here
talking about a baseball game.
- It's official--
Alex Rodriguez is no longer
on speaking terms
with the Yankees front office
because of the possibility
of a looming lawsuit.
- Alex Rodriguez taking aim
at Major League Baseball,
accusing them
of a smear campaign
to destroy his reputation.
- He's suing people.
He's suing
Major League Baseball,
and threatened
to sue the Yankees.
He's going down
with guns blazing.
- It was a war against the
union, the owners, the league.
And I was right
in the middle of it.
- It's a little like watching
an accident in slow motion
over the last couple of weeks.
You know when
the event is over,
somebody's gonna be hurt.
You don't know
whether it's just A-Rod,
the Yankees, Major League
Baseball, or all of the above.
- Yeah, it was
a soap opera, man.
I mean, it was a complete mess.
- 'Cause it was long
and nasty and expensive
and, without a question,
the worst time of my life.
- Strike three.
- And then we went
to arbitration
and fought that 211.
- Yankees third baseman
Alex Rodriguez
goes before a Major League
Baseball arbitrator today
to argue that
his 211-game suspension
should be called off.
- They lay out their case,
we lay out our case,
but we didn't get anywhere.
I mean, they--they
kicked our ass publicly
and in--and in the courtroom.
- It was revealed
during arbitration
the Rodriguez team admitted
paying $305,000 for evidence.
- You know, obviously,
when it first happens,
you're gonna do whatever you
gotta do
to try to make things
what's supposedly right.
- We had hired an attorney
who hired, I guess
an investigative company.
And that investigative
company said
that there was a hard drive
that was available
that had a series
of information on it,
and if we wanted to--to buy it.
And we said yes.
- Was there any valuable
information on that?
- It was blank.
- I mean, at the end of
the day, I'm a ballplayer,
and I didn't know
how to handle it.
It was--it was difficult.
- Rodriguez wanted MLB's
commissioner, Bud Selig,
to testify during
this arbitration.
Well, today,
the arbitrator decided
Selig does not
have to testify.
- How do you force the issue?
- We don't.
I mean, you know,
we can't, you know,
go kidnap him in Milwaukee
and bring him here.
- I remember feeling
angry and frustrated.
You know, if you're gonna
give me a lifetime ban
or give me a 211 ban, I mean,
we deserve to hear from you.
But when he didn't show up,
I knew we were cooked.
- Sports Radio 66
and 101.9 FM, WFAN ♪
- A-Rod, welcome. How are you?
- I've been better.
- Tell me what happened today.
- Well, we got a
ruling that, uh,
the commissioner does not have
to come in from Milwaukee.
And I lost my mind.
I banged a table and kicked
a briefcase
and slammed out of the room
and--and just
felt like the system--
I knew it was restricted,
and I knew it wasn't fair.
But what we saw today
- A-Rod is
his own worst enemy.
He always has been.
[sighs] He's got a flaw.
PEDs--they said you did
mountains of PEDs.
Did you do any?
- No.
- Did you obstruct a witness?
- There was no obstruction.
There was no intimidating.
There was none of that.
- None of this?
- None of that.
- So they don't--there's
not one thing you did?
- No.
- Hey, I'd be fighting, too,
if that's the case.
He didn't say no quietly.
He came to my show and swore
up and down, on the air,
off the air,
that he was telling the truth.
It's outrageous
if you're lying,
and it's outrageous if
they're wrong and they didn't--
you didn't do anything.
That's even more outrageous.
So somebody's
really badly wrong here.
I said, you realize
that if you're lying,
you're never gonna
climb out of this.
And he was in such a,
you know, belligerent mood.
That day, all he wanted to do
was tear Selig's head off.
- The man from Milwaukee that
put this suspension on me
with--with not one bit
of evidence,
something I didn't do,
he doesn't have the courage
to come look at me
in the eye and tell me,
this is why I did 211?
I shouldn't serve one inning.
And I felt like in many ways,
while I was guilty,
I thought I was
backed into a corner.
Think about what
I've been through.
If you are any other player
of the 13 players,
with what I've been through,
do you think anybody's
gonna fight
Major League Baseball?
- I don't think anybody has the
money to do it, first of all.
I don't think he's vindictive.
I don't think he's hateful.
I think he just
doesn't get it sometimes.
I didn't know if you
were innocent or guilty,
because let's be honest,
we know hundreds
of baseball players
did steroids.
And you did steroids once,
so I don't know if you
did steroids again or not.
That's your business.
- I knew what I was doing,
and I thought
I can thread the needle.
And, you know,
Bud Selig said, no way.
You are gonna get suspended
for 211 games.
This has been a disgusting
process for everyone,
and I'm more embarrassed
than anyone
to be on the front pages
in the news.
This is the game that
I love more than anything,
and I feel like, this is what
I have my PhD in, is baseball.
- Even in his darkest day,
I felt bad for him.
I probably shouldn't have,
but I did,
because I saw
a vulnerability there.
Hey, I appreciate
you coming in.
And I guess we'll find out
what's gonna happen.
This is obviously not the end
of this by any stretch.
He didn't see, I don't think,
any other way out
at that point.
It's like he had gone
too far with the story
to change the story,
until he had no choice
but to change the story.
[clock ticking]
- Yesterday, one of the best
baseball players of all time
was hit with the longest
doping suspension in history.
After a contentious
private hearing,
Major League Baseball's
arbitration judge
took the Yankee third baseman
out of the game
all of next season.
- In my judgment, his actions
were beyond comprehension.
You put all the drug things
on one side,
and then all the things that
he did to, in my--
impede our investigation.
I think 211 games
was a very fair penalty.
[tense music]
- I was so pissed when I saw
Bud Selig not show up
for the arbitration,
not show up when I called
for a man-to-man meeting alone,
but he shows up
on "60 Minutes."
And I was just like,
okay, this is--
it is what it is.
You know, thank God
the arbiter dropped it to 162.
- His attorney tells ABC News
he will file a new lawsuit
to overturn A-Rod's historic
162-game suspension,
handed down by an arbitrator
this weekend.
- You know when you keep
running from a problem,
and you want the thing
to go away,
the only way
it's gonna go away
is when you face the music
and it's over.
That's basically
where we were at.
Four- or five-hour phone calls
with lawyers
for eight, nine months,
it takes a toll on you.
You start asking yourself,
with everything
you have gone through,
where you've come from,
what you've been
able to accomplish,
and everything we're doing,
where are we?
You put yourself
into this mess.
You gotta take ownership
for yourself.
[pensive music]
- Good people in
my life that--
that were trying to help me.
But the one that
stands out is--
is Jim Sharp.
- I like him.
He has been a good friend
to me, and I have to him.
He's been tested.
And this steroid problem,
I think, was the depth for him.
- Jim has a very good
relationship with--
with Rob Manfred.
He called me, and at this time,
he wasn't representing me yet.
And he said, Alex,
I'm concerned because
not only are you ruining
your baseball career,
but you're starting
to screw up your life.
- You can find yourself,
as they say, in a hole,
and if you do, quit digging.
It looked to me
like by lawyering up
and filing a bunch of lawsuits,
what we were doing
was nurturing it.
I told him, you know,
you've got to understand,
this is serious, of course,
but it's not a crime
or anything.
This is a rule in baseball,
and you don't have to treat it
so seriously
that you're trying
to impress the client
by being assertive and--
and aggressive.
In fact, from the beginning,
I thought the best way
to do this was to back away
and let it get some hair on it.
- I called him back and
I said, hey, I need your help.
I'm certain I'm done
with my baseball career,
but can you help me
get my life back together?
And he said, yeah.
If it's okay with you,
let me call
Rob Manfred in the morning.
- The next morning, I had a
meeting with the commissioner.
He said,
what can I do for you?
I said, I understand you've
finished your investigation.
Yeah, he said.
Lord, I'm so glad
that it's done.
I said, I'll tell you
what you can do.
You can let me see it.
He asked me, he said,
what are you up to?
I said, let me see it,
and I think within 48 hours,
I'm going to start
dismissing all these cases,
if I can get the authority
to do it.
I looked at it
about five minutes.
That was all I needed.
I left and I called Alex.
- And he said, I think
I have a plan together.
We should put all
these lawsuits
and just put them down.
And then that's exactly when
I threw up the white flag.
- It's been revealed that
the Yankees third baseman has
withdrawn his lawsuit against
Major League Baseball,
the commissioner Bud Selig,
and the Players Association,
which for all intents and
purposes signals his surrender
and acceptance of
the 162-game suspension
that was handed down
- I said, that's it.
It's over.
This is a fucked-up way
to end a pretty good career.
For the first time
in 20-plus years,
I wasn't in spring training.
And then I started
seeing the games start,
and I'm watching every night
on YES Network.
I was like,
this is really strange.
[somber music]
I remember waking up
one night, and I'm like,
I'm the only dumbass
in the world
that has pocket aces
and figures out a way
how to lose the hand.
I mean, you have
hundreds of millions
of dollars guaranteed to you.
You have three MVPs,
you have a world championship.
Your legacy is cemented.
You're going straight
to the Hall of Fame.
And then I crossed the line,
and I caused myself
all of that,
plus the embarrassment
and the shame
and my reputation.
I cringe when I think about
how much I've hurt myself,
and I have no one
to blame but myself.
And
♪
Yeah, I mean, looking back at
it now, it was like
why?
Yeah.
♪
I'll never forget, I was
looking at those mountains,
and it felt like, you're never
gonna be able to climb it.
And to a degree,
I was like, why am I here?
I've already ruined everything.
It was a blessing that
I had started with Dr. David
prior to the Miami
news article breaking.
It was good to have him
by my side at that time.
We spent hours
and hours and hours
on the Yankees,
the suspension, Bud Selig.
There was so much hate there.
I was really angry inside.
Still, I wasn't,
like, at that place
where I was
accepting everything.
Dr. David would, like, put
a quick stop to that and just--
he would always turn it back
to me and says,
what was your--what was
your part in this?
And at first, I just really
rejected that way of thinking.
I wasn't thinking clearly.
I was, um
I was the victim.
And just missing things.
Just, like, not seeing things.
Well, Major League Baseball
had something against me,
versus, like, I screwed up,
and they were doing their jobs.
And if I didn't screw up,
even if they wanted to hurt me,
they--they couldn't hurt me.
And how there's a cause and
effect of my actions, you know?
And then, you know, months,
months, and years later,
I started feeling like, okay.
I understand exactly what
happened here, and it's on me.
But that was a long bridge
to walk,
a lot of work, a lot of time.
[ethereal music]
I mean, we went all
the way back to--to birth,
early days in New York.
He said, tell me about Victor.
Oh, well, Victor, man, he was--
I was on that couch
right there.
Oh, Victor, he was
really smart, good-looking,
really good with numbers,
loved baseball.
We used to love
playing baseball together.
He said, man,
you're so full of shit.
Which I was, 'cause I was
dancing around it.
I was still
kind of bullshitting,
like, protecting my dad.
The first time that
it hit me, like, hard
was when I would have to go
and do my writing assignments.
He would give me
homework assignments,
and I would have to
come up with vignettes
where I would have these mock
conversations with my father.
And I would tell him,
I'm a terrible writer, so.
And he says, it's not the point
about how good of a writer
you are, it's about
your emotions.
So I said, okay.
Now, I'm, like,
eight years old here, okay?
[chuckles] How are you, my son?
I say, I'm not doing well, Dad.
Why not, son?
Because you abandoned us--
Mom, Joe, Suzy, me.
When we needed you most,
you left us.
I was only ten.
My father--that's not
the case at all, son.
I love you.
You're my prince,
my number one.
I say, really?
You're full of shit, Dad.
My dad says, but son,
I've always loved you.
We were attached at the hip
when we lived in New York
and DR from age one to ten.
Then your mom, Miami,
it was tough, you know?
Look, I don't expect you
to understand this.
These are the things
that occurred back then.
I say, Victor--
not Dad, Victor--
stop.
You're bullshitting me.
You're full of shit.
You've done it for 43 years.
Enough is enough.
You've lied to me from day one.
That's why
I'm so full of shit myself.
I grew up around it.
I thought I can get away
with everything like you,
bullshit myself through life.
My dad says,
what are you talking about?
How about 2014, my full-year
suspension for using PEDs,
then acting like
a fucking asshole,
doubling down,
blaming everyone?
Sounds familiar yet?
Does it remind you
of anyone, Dad?
Dads says, I'm gonna go now.
Hmm.
Of course you are.
That's par for the course.
Except for one big difference.
This time, I'm ready. Goodbye.
Don't fucking come back.
Let's hit it.
- I always bring up the guys
who have it really together--
Jeter, Peyton Manning,
Tom Brady.
Very strong families,
very strong parenting.
A-Rod didn't have that.
[pensive music]
♪
- I think when you don't
have a sense of self,
and you're a young person
trying to fit in,
you could take the path of
adjusting your personality,
your likes and dislikes
and your behavior,
according to the company
that you keep.
- I think he was
kind of an immature guy.
He missed a lot
of developmental steps,
when you're in your 20s,
and suddenly
you're making so much money
and you're a big deal,
and that's hard.
That's really hard
for people, I think.
And if they don't have this
solid foundation of people
in their lives--
maybe a father figure,
for Alex, who was missing--
it is very destabilizing
to have that level
of fame and attention.
So I think all these things
contribute to--
to maybe not feeling completely
secure in who you are.
- From the age of 19,
for 162 nights,
he was on TV
for three and a half hours,
and you were watching him.
And then you followed him
into the locker room
for another 45 minutes,
and you were watching him.
- We didn't know
how to handle his fame,
'cause there's
not a playbook to it.
And so it was--it was trying
for all of us in that respect.
- You know, the difference
between Alex and I is,
I learned a lot
playing with my dad,
watching him.
You know, how to
set up pitchers,
how to be a pro,
how to do all these things.
I'm looking at someone
that I look like
and who loves me for me--
not for what I do, just for me.
- When I was in Little League,
I used to always look
for my parents in the stands,
and it just
made me comfortable.
It was the same thing when
I was in the Major Leagues.
I looked for my parents.
It made me comfortable.
- I think it comes back to the
kid whose dad wasn't there.
He chases acceptance.
He wants to be accepted,
and he wants to be loved.
And you keep score with
success, homers and RBIs
and batting average,
maybe money.
- He wanted so much
to be respected and loved.
And he wanted everything,
and he seeks it
in the worst ways,
the worst ways,
that backfired terribly.
I mean, it's just part of him,
and I think that's--
in a lot of ways,
it's been his curse.
- I just don't think
he had that perspective
or that parent to, like,
pull him aside
and say, what are you doing?
That's where
the self-confidence comes in
and the groundedness and the
rootedness of somebody's,
like, moral fiber.
And he was lacking
in those areas.
He just was.
I don't know, they might
have still gone that way.
Maybe his father
didn't have skills
that he would have needed.
Maybe he didn't.
Maybe he wouldn't have
suffered the loss of his dad
but maybe he wouldn't have
been aggressively trying
to become the best he could.
Otherwise, I mean,
who knows, right?
- I'm not sure if I would
have accomplished what I did
on the field
with a present father,
but I certainly think that
having a present father
would have helped me avoid
some of the dumbass decisions
that I've made.
Being here, like, at ground
zero, just keeps you honest.
And I would say that my entire
mission, post-Dr. David,
basically comes down
to two things,
and I think about these
two things every single day.
One is decreasing,
diminishing your ego,
and the other one is
increasing self-awareness.
Before Dr. David,
it was opposite.
And Dr. David, we would
always tell each other,
watch me here
and don't let me get slippery.
Making sure you're saying what
you mean and mean what you say,
like, all these things are--
they sound, like, so basic.
But the truth of the matter
was, they weren't basic to me.
Thank God that
I finally learned,
'cause if I didn't,
I wouldn't be here.
I thought you were
so much better
once we got on the real road,
after the reps.
- I thought you were
gonna say than Tashi.
- [laughs]
- I--I am though, right?
- Actually, I think
at this point,
you're more advanced
than Tashi.
When I served my suspension,
one of the most
pivotal moments
was when I sat Natasha
and Ella down in my office,
and I'm telling them
what happened
and why I'm serving
a suspension.
[gentle music]
It was really important for me
to be as honest as I can be
for an 11 and 7-year-old.
And not bullshit them,
because I never wanted them
to feel like
they have to bullshit Dad.
And I remember
they both gave me a hug.
And they said, uh,
don't worry, Dad,
you can do this.
And Ella, who was five, said,
Dad, you don't need
anybody's help.
You can still hit home runs.
- He's always said to me,
he's like,
you can tell me anything.
Whatever you're going through,
I've done worse.
And so he's like,
I don't care what you try,
what experience
you have with people.
He's like, I've done worse.
And so that's always kind of
been like a safety blanket.
[indistinct chatter]
- All phones, everything's
disconnected here, right?
Like, no
- Yes, Dad.
- Snap, WhatsApp,
none of the messages.
- Okay, here we go.
- You need your full attention.
You're gonna go straight.
- I do think he's become
so much more aware.
From what I've heard about him
back in those years
was that, like, he just, like,
could not put his pride aside,
was just a mess, kind of.
Like, I--he's even
showed me, like,
old clips and stuff
of him speaking,
and it's just not
the same person.
Like, he's truly, like,
evolved in that sense.
- That's good.
That was a little jerky beef.
- [laughing] What?
- I think when
for a big part of your life,
you're a narcissist--
and I say
I'm a recovering narcissist.
That was foreign for me,
to, uh
lean into being a father.
Quite honestly, I don't know
if I could be a good parent
without Dr. David.
I didn't have a dad
that I can copy and paste.
I was, like, shooting darts
in the--in the dark,
hoping for the best.
And he helped
every facet of my life.
He made me a better baseball
player, a better teammate,
more humble, full of gratitude.
And we thought about
quitting baseball.
It was like, maybe I just try
to piece my life back together
but maybe just disappear
and not--
and not play again.
I thought it was obvious
the Yankees
didn't want me to come back.
You never have to
face the music again.
You don't have to
face your demons.
You don't have to go back
to stadiums and get booed,
and I would've disappeared.
[exhales]
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I didn't wanna be remembered
for my darkest moment.
I thought, after being
body-slammed at 40 years old,
broken down, when nobody
thinks I can do it
That the comeback matters too.
[Jefferson Starship's
"Find Your Way Back"]
That season was probably
the single most
important season in my life.
And I'll never forget this.
As I drove to the stadium,
I made a promise to myself--
whether I go 4 for 4
or 0 for 4,
I'm gonna enjoy it,
because I do not know
when they're gonna
take the uniform away again.
- You know it's been
a long, long road ♪
- This is his first appearance
in a big league game
since the end of 2013.
- I never thought
we'd see him again, ever.
I thought
he'd never play again.
I thought he'd never be
in the public eye again.
- That one is driven out to
right center, and A-Rod gets
his first hit of the season.
[cheering]
- But, you know,
Alex does have--
he's got cubes.
- High drive, left field.
There it goes!
- I'm 40 years old.
I'm out of jail.
I'm a fucking New York Yankee.
- Here's the throw.
Here's the play.
- Nice!
- He's in there!
- And I went out and had one
of the best years of my career.
- This one is off the top
of the wall, and gone!
- He tried to make
amends with people,
and he also accepted blame.
If he tried to, like,
A-Rod himself through it,
I don't think
it would have worked,
but I think he was
pretty genuine.
- 1-1.
Lined into right center field.
That's a base hit.
It'll go to the wall!
That'll tie the score.
♪
Number 660.
Home run number 661 breaks
the tie with Willie Mays,
and it breaks the tie
- You come back from
a year's suspension
and have 33 home runs.
It shows how great the guy is.
- Pop fly ball.
Deep down the center.
There it goes!
Yeah!
A grand slam.
[cheering]
- I said, you're Lazarod.
You just rose from the dead.
People don't
come back from this.
- He's only the second man
in history to get 2,000 RBIs.
- Not only does he come back,
but he's come back
more popular than ever before.
He was dead!
There's no coming back
from that, and somehow he did.
- Find your way back ♪
- It's carrying.
It's back near the wall,
and just like Derek Jeter,
his 3,000th hit is a home run.
[cheering]
- Find your way back ♪
[muffled chatter]
- I'm on a journey of being
a man with integrity and
character, and someone that--
that you can bet on
and you can trust.
You can go a whole lifetime
without changing a fucking 5%.
And the fact that
I've changed so much,
I can only credit Dr. David
for putting up with me.
So even though Dr. David
is not around anymore,
he still lives in me.
If Dr. David was here,
I'd be ragging on him,
and I'd give him a big hug,
and try to make him feel really
uncomfortable around you guys.
And then I would give him
a bunch of compliments,
and he would tell me to stop.
He hates that.
He doesn't want it.
He's a very, very
private person.
That's why you gotta--
like, we're in the middle
of nowhere here in Evergreen,
and this--
where the sessions are.
But I--[clears throat]
[exhales]
He was so tough on me.
He was really hard on me.
I thought too hard, at times.
But in the end,
I know why he was doing it.
He saved my life.
[gentle music]
♪
- The last two seasons,
and as Jack alluded to, 2015,
a Renaissance season.
33 home runs
and drove in 86 runs.
But this season,
limited to 62 games,
just 9 home runs,
3 for 30 since
- He was getting beat a
little bit with the fastball.
Once that happens
and you're an older player
- The Yankees said
he was overmatched,
and when you put that
classification on a player,
you're not gonna use
that player very often.
[cameras shutters snapping]
- I love this game,
and I love this team.
And today, I'm saying
goodbye to both.
- Talking with
Hal Steinbrenner here
on "The Michael Kay Show."
Every account
in the media, Hal,
is that this was very cordial,
and it was
not confrontational.
- Just wanted to have an
honest conversation with him
and convey to him
kind of where we're going,
that we're gonna start
to bring up young players.
With that happening,
in all likelihood,
it's not gonna mean that he's
gonna be getting more at-bats.
And he understood that.
He understood that.
- I wanna thank my mom,
who's watching at home,
and my daughters, my family,
my friends,
former managers,
coaches, teammates.
Thank you for your support.
You've been through
so much with me.
- I cried when he said
he was gonna retire.
I was so sad for him.
I didn't want him to retire.
It was, like, sad for me
to see him finish.
But on the flip side of that,
I respected him
for walking away
when he was still, you know,
agile and able to play.
[thunder rumbling]
- Please welcome
to the field number 13.
[cheers and applause]
[somber music]
- He's grown a lot, man.
We've all grown.
We've just been able to figure
out that it was all necessary
for us to be where we are today
with our kids,
with our family.
Yeah.
[chuckles]
Yeah, Alex is a good person.
He's good.
[cheering]
- He probably wishes he
could do things over again,
because I tell you,
he'd be a Hall-of-Famer
on the first ballot.
- The 2-2.
Line drive, base hit!
[cheering]
Souza cannot cut it off.
It'll go to the wall!
Gardner will score.
He has an RBI double,
and the Yankees
have tied the game at 1.
♪
- He probably should
get in now.
I know a lot of people
feel different,
but I'm not a baseball purist.
[cheering]
- Swing and a miss.
Betances strikes out the side,
and the Yankees win 6 to 3,
and Alex Rodriguez
goes out with a victory.
One of the greatest careers
in baseball history,
and it concludes
in pinstripes tonight.
- The first time that
I knew Dr. David's work
was really working,
I was, like,
4 home runs shy of 700.
And my instinct said,
come on, Hal.
Let me just get four more,
man.
Four more, and I can do it.
Give me--give me a month.
I've worked so hard for this.
And I thought about it
for, like, five minutes.
And I said, you know what?
696 with the Yankees
was greater than 700
with another uniform on.
I think the way I handled that
made me really, really proud,
because A-Rod would still
be playing right now.
- So the curtain comes down on
the complicated but brilliant
career of Alex Rodriguez.
- I think that
after the suspension,
he retired in peace.
And while he may never,
you know,
step foot in the Hall of Fame,
I just think he was
a Hall-of-Famer day one,
you know?
- Only a fool would say
A-Rod wasn't a great player.
He won three MVPs.
He's in the top 10 or top 20
in most statistics.
He had 3,000 hits.
He had 2,000 RBIs.
He had 2,000 runs scored.
He had 696 home runs.
He won Gold Gloves
at shortstop.
Even with those numbers,
as outstanding and amazing
as they are, not gonna happen.
Not gonna happen.
And that's the blessings
and the curse,
and that's what makes him
that Shakespearean figure.
[cheering]
♪
- What was going through your
mind as you made that walk?
- Well, it was exciting.
That's--that's where I played,
you know,
a lot of my baseball over here.
That's where we won
the World Championship in 2009.
And, uh--
[cheering]
♪
This is my favorite moment,
when my girls come out.
I mean, through it all, to be
able to have that opportunity
to close my career like this,
I felt an incredible amount
of gratitude.
I'll cherish that
for the rest of my life,
to walk out of that stadium
with a full house,
with a standing ovation,
with my head high.
And in the middle
of that suspension,
I felt that was
an impossibility.
I can't say enough
about these fans.
Um--
[cheering]
I've given these fans a lot
of headaches over the years,
and I've disappointed
a lot of people.
But like I've always said,
you don't have to be
defined by your mistakes.
How you come back matters too.
[cheering]
♪
- I believe you are
defined by your mistakes,
but you are also
further defined
by how you mend your mistakes.
You can never get rid of it.
There's not a full erasure.
I don't think you ever
get out from under them,
but you could write
another chapter.
- Like, we have to
always mitigate risk.
But also, I don't see any risk
whatsoever on that, because
- You know, it's funny.
In some regards,
he's really landed a lot better
than I ever thought possible.
If I had told you then that
he'd be doing network baseball
as a broadcaster,
I mean, that's a very
visible, coveted position.
- Would you ever think this
is a guy who would go out
with Warren Buffett and own
a professional sports team
and be an incredible success
business-wise?
[indistinct chatter]
He's got two adoring
daughters that he loves.
If he's looking
for more than this,
I'm gonna have to
slap him around.
He's doing okay.
- Send those next.
Send those.
- I guess the question
I'd ask him is,
have you finally
found yourself?
Are you finally comfortable
with who you are?
- In a weird way,
that suspension,
you know, thinking about it
ten years later,
while I cringed
and I'm embarrassed
and I burned bridges,
someday--not quite yet--
I'll be able to say
that's the best thing
that happened in my life.
Because I took that opportunity
to pause,
turn the lens inward
And I've come out
on the other side.
Not a Hall-of-Famer,
which sucks,
but a happier person.
[dramatic music]
♪
[laughter]
I was in there for a really,
really long time,
and I thought
it was everything.
But
it's the Hall of Fame.
It's not heaven.
[crowd shouting]
I know the haters are saying--
they're saying,
like, yeah, BS,
I don't believe it.
I'm sure there's people
watching here that are like,
what do you call it?
Like, hate-watch.
And no matter what I say,
they're gonna spin it
to why they're gonna
hate me more, right?
They're gonna think
I'm slippery,
and they're gonna find
something in this documentary
to say, see, I told you so.
That's why
that guy's an asshole.
I don't trust him.
I don't like him.
And that's fine.
But I'm done saying I'm sorry.
I'm done.
Like, new day.
Moving on.
A fucking new decade.
I'm in a great place,
and I sit in my gratitude
and my humility
to move forward,
and I choose to ignore those
who will always be haters.
God bless you.
♪
[dramatic orchestral music]
♪
[bright tone]
[TV static drones]
[bright tone]
[snow crunching]
- A-Rod is
a Shakespearean figure.
[soft suspenseful music]
He's one of the greatest
players who ever played.
[cheering]
Big, strong, good-looking,
the whole thing.
This guy was
an immortal player,
but he also was an incredibly
flawed individual.
- You know,
I say this proudly.
I don't think there's ever
been a baseball player
that has loved the game
like Alex has.
You could say
whatever you want,
say he took this,
he took that.
At the end of the day,
he's gonna put up numbers.
He's gonna hit the baseball.
That's what he was born to do.
[cheering]
This wasn't about baseball.
I think this was about life.
One thing I've definitely
learned in life,
the truth is always
gonna come out.
It might take 30 years,
it might take 2 years,
it might take 40 years.
The truth is gonna come out,
and you're gonna have
to deal with it at some point.
- You know, Alex Rodriguez
is just a seminal player.
You know, it comes along
once in a generation,
maybe a lifetime.
[cheering]
You take away
all the extraneous nonsense,
he's one of the best players
who ever lived.
Again, it always begs
the question to me--
and I wonder if he's
lying alone at night,
looking up at the ceiling--
why did I ever do any of it?
♪
- Why rich and powerful
people cheat, part one.
There is an arrogance that
often comes with power.
The aura of power
surrounding you
makes you feel immune
from consequences.
You feel you can do things
that mere mortals
are forbidden to do.
You see other wealthy people
living a façade in public
and a different life
in private.
The key to pulling this off
comes from keeping your
public and private life
as separate as possible
and creating an image
that shields you
from a closer scrutiny.
Yeah, this is a--
a train wreck ready to happen.
This whole idea that you're
one person
in front of the camera
and you're a completely
different person off-camera.
And that's exhausting,
'cause you're trying to keep up
with the shit
you're trying to get away with.
Not fun, and full of
anxiety and stress.
And there's a sense,
I won't get caught,
'cause you actually think you
are better than other people.
There's nothing more stupid
than that, right?
- You learned that the hard
way, though, didn't you?
- I did learn that
the hard way.
♪
- And now a great
New York tradition,
time to hand out
one of New York's
most prestigious honors,
the keys to the city.
[cheering]
- I mean,
the thing when you win,
especially if you win
in a place like New York,
there is a celebration tour
that can last five months.
And then you're like,
okay, this is fun,
but I got a season that
I gotta get ready for in 2010.
We gotta--we gotta repeat.
- Alex, I know it's a cliché,
but what a difference
a year makes.
Last year,
I remember we sat here
and you were apologizing
to the fans and all that.
And I mean, how much different
is this season for you?
- Well, it's much different.
And, uh, you know, I'm in
a much better place right now.
I know that last year,
we sat here
- In the past, the pressure
for him cracked pipes.
In 2009, the pressure
created a diamond.
You know, you just
shut everybody up.
Everybody that doubted you,
everybody that said,
yeah, he's the creation
of pharmaceuticals--
he did it.
[pensive music]
Now, when spring training
was starting,
I said, well, he's gonna have
a monster year,
because, you know,
he's free of everything.
You know, he's won
his World Series.
What do you think?
- I hope so.
- Yeah?
- I hope so, yeah.
- Another MVP,
another world championship?
- The only goal is the
same goal we had last year,
was A, to have a lot of fun,
play as a team.
And I look forward
to defending a world title.
- You seem happy.
- I am happy. [chuckles]
♪
- High drive,
center field deep.
Going back rows.
Looking up.
See ya!
There it is!
Number 600!
Alex Rodriguez,
the youngest man
ever to get to 600 home runs.
- I felt like the World Series
came and went.
- And that one is driven deep
to left center field.
Going back, Van Every.
On the track, at the wall!
- I was basically
at the pinnacle
of my baseball career.
But, I mean, there was just--
there was a lot going on
at the time.
- I think a lot
comes with success.
I mean, you check
on guys, you know.
How are you doing?
Everything okay?
- I think in 2010,
there was a big hangover
from winning the World Series.
[umpire shouts indistinctly]
- And Rodriguez
caught looking.
- I had never seen Alex start
losing the love of the game,
like not wanting
to train as much
or not wanting
to practice as much
or not wanting to be
around baseball as much,
and that's what
I saw happening.
- The Texas Rangers,
our American League champions!
- And I also think that
he was struggling
with where he was
at a personal level.
You know, now you're getting
older, the kids are older,
and you're on the road a lot.
And it was tough.
His divorce was tough.
- We functioned
very quickly co-parenting.
The girls, you know,
in order to see him,
they have to travel,
and they're so small,
so I would travel with them.
He would come back
and he would--you know,
if he had a day off,
he would come.
And he was amazing
when he was present.
It's just that those times
were just so select.
- Valverde deals,
and a swing and a miss!
Valverde strikes out
Alex Rodriguez,
and the Detroit Tigers
are headed to the American
League Championship Series
- Something was off
with my game,
but it was less about that
and more about
self-development.
From the time
I was drafted at 17,
six years later,
here comes the 252.
Six years later,
here comes 275, controversies,
the championship after that.
Everything was moving so fast.
[snaps fingers]
It was a blur.
I could have been really
mature on the field
but that doesn't mean that
my off-the-field development
was caught up to that.
And there was
a huge disconnect.
I had a lot of work to do.
As a person,
I had a lot of work to do.
[airplane engine roaring]
Around that time, in 2010,
I was on a flight
with a friend.
I expressed to him that I was
going through a tough time.
And he said, well, I have
someone you should meet,
but this guy is like nobody
you've ever met before.
[ethereal music]
My first appointment, I flew
out to Evergreen, Colorado,
this beautiful small town,
kind of in the middle
of nowhere.
♪
It was cold, it was snowing.
I didn't know what to expect.
[breathing heavily]
[exhales]
Oh, man.
Oh.
♪
You know, I never
came in this house.
We would always go
around to his office.
I mean, it's a bit shocking
being back here.
Dr. David has passed,
and that's a tough pill
to swallow.
Everything's pretty much
the same.
He had his desk,
two computers, third one here.
The couch was over here.
We would do our sessions.
And he had a chair right here,
and he has a little table.
He would always have,
like, water there,
but I never saw him
eat anything, drink anything,
or ever go to the bathroom.
So at one point,
I asked him, are you human
or are you just a robot
with no emotions?
Yeah, he would never laugh
at any of my jokes, so.
The minute
you're around Dr. David,
you just know he's different.
He just--very, very
serious person, an academic,
and has done retreats
all over the world.
I wish it was a retreat.
[chuckles] It wasn't a retreat.
There's so much significance
in this room for me.
I'm just picturing Dr. David.
I mean, I can feel him
all over the room.
Interesting.
[contemplative music]
I think in many ways,
it feels like a lab
or a batting cage
where I got so much work done.
He described it
as rewiring the brain.
And he said, if you start this
process, you have to finish.
You can't stop in the middle,
because it'll be even worse.
I was like, okay,
this sounds intense.
That first session
was really about
feeling each other out
a little bit.
There was a lot of, like,
volleying and back and forth.
Alex: I'm having
a hard time at work.
I'm trying to get all these
people to do this and do that,
and they're not doing it.
Dr. David:
have you ever thought
that you're a terrible leader?
Alex: what?
Maybe you don't know
how to lead people.
Do you think people
respect you and trust you?
Alex: all right,
I need a fucking break.
I'm going to the bathroom.
That was my
favorite place to go,
'cause it was the only time
he would give me a break.
- [laughs]
- And then I would,
like, stall.
Oh, my God, it's so weird.
I mean, he was such
a truth-teller,
and I wasn't used to that.
He would just throw arrows
right between your eyes, right?
Like, when you talk you sound
like you're full of shit,
'cause you are.
And, like, in hindsight,
I was so fucking slippery,
and I'd think
I can bullshit him.
I'd think I was
smarter than him,
and he just would
never let me slide.
And he said something
to me that was like,
you're so underwater that
you can't even see straight,
and you're
running out of time.
[clock ticking]
Like, the fuck does that mean?
I felt like early on,
I didn't understand
what I was doing here.
And after the first week,
I was flying home.
And I thought to myself, what
a fucking waste of my time.
[exhales]
What the hell
does Dr. David know?
What brought me back?
Well, I wasn't gonna quit.
That's what brought me back.
You know, I was
so damn stubborn
that I'm like, all right now.
It's like facing
a tough pitcher.
He's not gonna intimidate me,
no matter how much--
I know he's trying to drive--
[laughs] I know he's
trying to drive me here,
and he's hoping that
I never come back,
but I'm gonna come back
and make him miserable.
And it was just a battle,
then I made it a competition,
and that's really
what brought me back.
Like, I'm never gonna quit.
That tells you how
fucking lost I was.
[crowd chanting]
- Jeter at second. One out.
3-2 to Rodriguez.
It hit him! Oh, my goodness.
[crowd booing]
- Looked like he hit him
with the changeup,
but Felix's changeup
is 88 to 90 miles an hour.
And that one, he's in a
lot of pain right there.
- Alex, you just talked about,
yesterday,
how well you were
swinging the bat.
How much more difficult
is this to take,
how you've been playing
offensively lately?
- Yeah, it's difficult.
[tense music]
Tough break.
- What have they told you
as far as the time frame?
- Haven't told me anything.
Just fractured.
Aging is never fun,
especially when you're going
through--through injuries.
For so many years, I mean,
I could go through a wall
and just get back up
and just keep playing.
- Alex Rodriguez is
going to have surgery Monday
to repair the torn meniscus
in his right knee.
- I was a workhorse,
and I loved to play every day,
and I think those injuries
started piling on
and contributing
to other injuries.
- 3-2.
Popped up.
- On the changeup.
And Alex, frustrated,
slams the bat.
Ooh, looks like something
might have happened
right there coming out
of the box.
Little wince.
- You think
after he slammed the bat,
or something
with his leg, John?
- As I got into my mid-30s,
all those surgeries
and rehabs,
they started definitely
getting to me.
I had knee surgery in '99,
I believe, my left side.
And it was a pretty
simple recovery,
so I'm hoping for the same.
Except I'm a little older now.
I wanted to be able to get
out of bed and not be in pain.
And I just wanted, in the worst
way, just to be able to play
and, you know, post up
every day for my team.
Post-World Series, my--
a person that was close to me
kept saying, hey, I know
you don't feel good.
You're not sleeping as good.
You should meet this guy that
I wanna introduce you to.
[waves lapping]
We're down in St. Pete
playing the Rays.
He says, hey, that guy's here.
He actually has a clinic
right down the street.
If you wanna see him, I can
bring him up to the room.
And that's when I met Tony
for the first time.
His hair wasn't brushed.
He looked like
he hadn't slept much.
I was like, who is this guy?
He said he was a doctor.
He's like, why don't
you take off your shirt?
So I take off my shirt.
He's like, oh, yeah.
Oh, you need a lot of help.
You need a lot of work.
You need a lot of work.
Where does it hurt?
He starts moving my leg
around a little bit.
And basically I said,
I'm not sleeping that great,
my metabolism is not that good,
um,
and I'm not recovering
well at all.
He's like,
I have something for you.
And he said, HGH.
And I said, okay, tell me more.
He goes, well, you just
put it in your stomach,
and you'll be able
to sleep better.
You're gonna recover better.
It's good for your skin.
Men and women use it.
Athletes
and non-athletes use it.
So there's--I'm getting
a little bit of an education.
And I was like, nah, you know,
I'm good, I'm good.
I don't need to do that.
And then probably
a few weeks later,
they were both asking me,
like, you know,
why not give it a try?
At that point, I knew
that if I did this,
I would be breaking
a Major League Baseball rule.
So I kept saying no.
[soft tense music]
But I wanted to get out there
so badly and play.
The Yankees are paying me
a shitload of money.
There's an embarrassment,
looking your teammates
in the eyes
and not being able
to play every day.
At the time, I knew it was
a very, very risky thing to do.
But if this is actually
gonna make me feel better
and help me get out of bed
and help me not be in pain,
then fuck it.
I'll risk it.
I went into it
like, okay, I just do this
for the rest of
the year, for like,
a month or month and a half.
And hopefully, you know,
this offseason,
my hip can feel better, and I
can never look back, you know?
And then once I tried it
you're in the wrong side,
and you broke
a Major League Baseball rule.
So I knew I did it,
and I knew that
I was breaking a rule.
And it was like that moment
where you go too far,
and you're just like, oh,
can't take it back now.
- A report published
in the "Miami New Times"
says this clinic,
called Biogenesis,
was a pipeline to PEDs
for several players.
- The first time
I hear of Biogenesis
is when someone calls my phone.
They told me that, you know,
some guy was owed money
and he was gonna
whistleblow the people
that were involved
in Biogenesis.
- I'm around Alex a lot,
and I had never seen
that guy ever around Alex.
I think Alex was
probably embarrassed
that the guy was around
and he'd keep him hidden.
I don't think Alex ever
went to the clinic.
I think that guy Tony
went to see Alex.
- At the time, I'd never even
heard of this publication.
It wasn't like "The New York
Times" or anything.
So I was like, maybe it's a
24-hour story, or 48 hours.
But it certainly wasn't that.
- Alex Rodriguez
among 20 players
believed to be connected to a
now-closed Miami-area clinic.
- The highest-paid player
in the history of baseball
might be one step away
from losing it all.
- And then that's when
all hell broke loose.
- A-Rod.
- A-Rod.
- A-Rod.
- What in the world
is A-Rod thinking?
- It took off like a wildfire.
- A-Rod insisted he stopped
doping back in 2004,
and that he's always
been clean as a Yankee.
- I was stunned.
I was shocked.
I was kind of
ticked off at him.
You know, why would
you do this again?
I was his biggest supporter.
I like him personally.
After what happened in '09,
the test and everything,
why would you go there again?
- Could this
theoretically be the end
of A-Rod in Yankee pinstripes?
- It was just an avalanche
of, like, bad news,
worse news, awful news.
- The penalties
are the penalties.
50 games, a hundred games,
three strikes and you're out.
- I was like, oh, man,
I did it this time.
- A-Rod became, especially
the second time around,
the poster boy
for steroid abuse.
He really did.
- Is baseball gonna
get serious or not?
This is a major watershed
for Major League Baseball.
And I think A-Rod deserves
the brunt of all of this.
- This has been
a shadow that has been
over Major League Baseball
for a couple of decades.
They didn't handle this thing
right from the beginning.
If you go back,
they were sitting here
with a bunch of star players
who had cheated.
You don't have to be
Sherlock Holmes
to find these guys, okay?
Everybody knew
what those guys were doing,
and they couldn't ever get
the genie back in the bottle.
- Do you solemnly swear that
the testimony you'll give
before this committee will be
the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth?
- Finally, there comes
a point where Congress
gets involved
and smacks baseball around,
and smacks Selig around.
And then you got these guys
like Palmeiro and McGwire
and Sosa
embarrassing themselves,
and Selig says, you know what?
I've had enough of this.
We're gonna get tough.
- I decided to do
this investigation
so that no one could ever say
that baseball had something
to hide.
Because I certainly did not.
- Baseball now was gonna
be really hard on everybody
after being so lax.
- I tried reaching out
to Bud Selig
and just get
in front of him one-on-one
and talk this thing through
before lawyers got involved
and all this other stuff.
I asked for two meetings,
and he said no twice.
- I was scared
'cause I knew this time around,
they were gonna come after us
like there's no tomorrow.
- Commissioner Selig
told Rob Manfred
to do what he had to do to get
to the bottom of the scandal.
- Biogenesis then became,
I would say, a circus act.
MLB had investigators
down here knocking on doors,
trying to get documents.
People were paying people off.
- I have private investigators
all over the office,
people following
our receptionist in the car,
a helicopter over our building.
- I mean,
there's just nowhere to hide,
and it just kept getting
bigger and bigger.
- They did things
that you're saying,
baseball can't be
doing this stuff.
I mean, they bought stolen
evidence to try and get him.
- A gentleman had
the Biogenesis documents,
and we bought them.
- How much?
- $100,000.
- I'm not saying A-Rod
didn't make his bed.
He did.
But it was a good way
to show the public
that they were gonna
cleanse the sport.
And it was an easy mark.
He made himself an easy mark.
He really did.
- Some breaking news tonight
within Major League Baseball.
We are learning that baseball
is about to announce
its most sweeping set
of suspensions
for use of
performance-enhancing drugs.
- At some point, they finished
their investigation,
and now we were
just on wait mode
to see what the penalties
were gonna be.
And you heard anything
from 50 games to lifetime ban.
So I remember the day
and the call.
The phone rang,
and it was Tony Clark,
the head of the union.
He goes,
just wanna let you know
we got the suspension number.
And he said, it's 211 games.
[tense music]
And I said, 211 games?
I said, Tony,
how can that be possible?
Like, I'm 40.
That means that I'm done.
They've--I'm retired.
And then I said,
did everyone get the same, 211?
And he said, no,
everyone else got 50 games.
And, uh--and I said, so how--
we're all in the same union.
We all made the same mistake.
How does one get 50
and somebody else
gets more than 4X?
- What they have said is that
they have what they believe is
a convincing case
against A-Rod
that includes not only his use
of performance-enhancing drugs,
but that he tried to subvert
their investigation into it,
and maybe even tried
to recruit some other players.
And that,
for all those reasons,
his penalty will be
more severe than the others.
- It was confusing,
because on one end I made--
I made the mistake,
and I should be penalized.
But I kept hearing
his voice, 211, 211.
I'm like, I couldn't
even comprehend, at 39,
40 years old,
how you can be suspended
for a year and a half.
- Now a Yankees official
tells me
they do expect him to appeal
any suspension,
which means that
his case will be heard,
then determined,
by an arbitrator.
It could take
over a month to settle.
- Of course,
I have to fight back.
I almost felt like
I had no choice.
In one big scoop, it was like,
okay, no Hall of Fame,
lifetime suspension,
and the Yankees
were still on the hook
for over $100 million.
I will say this--
there's more than one party
that benefits from me
not ever stepping
back on the field,
and that's not my teammates,
and it's not the Yankee fans.
So the fight was no longer
about, did I do it?
The fight is like,
this is an overreach, and why?
And what's the agenda?
- Just look at the scenario.
A-Rod stays on the field.
He plays during
an appeals process.
But what happens every time
he takes the field?
Isn't all the talk
gonna be about steroids,
scandal, and A-Rod?
- Alex, do you have anything
to say about what happened?
- Oh, there's no question
about that.
It's gonna be
a circus tonight.
But if A-Rod
is smart about this,
his comments are gonna be
as conciliatory as possible,
and he's gonna keep saying,
we'll just let
the appeal play itself out.
- Guys, do we have
any water anywhere?
- We can get--get you some.
- Okay.
[camera shutters snapping]
- Hey, could you grab a water?
Could you grab a water?
Thank you.
- Go ahead.
- Steve and Dave.
- Alex, in 2009, you asked fans
to judge you from that point
forward in your press
conference at spring training.
What would you say to them now,
the people who
took you on your word then?
- Well, I--I would tell them
that, you know,
please have some patience.
Let this process play out.
- You didn't deny the charges.
Do you deny that you use PEDs?
- Like I said,
I think we'll have a forum
to discuss all of that.
- If you didn't use PEDs,
why don't you just say it?
- I--there's a lot of things
that have been thrown
to the wall, and at some point,
we'll sit in front
of an arbiter and give it our--
give our case.
And that's as much
as I feel comfortable
telling you right now.
Like anything else, you gotta
just put your blinders on and--
and do your job.
- On the outside,
it appears that Alex Rodriguez
is dealing with it,
managing, playing baseball.
But so much swirling
around him right now.
- The only place he can't
get asked the question--
unless it's by an umpire--
about something
is on the field.
Everywhere else he goes,
he goes home and watches TV,
any sports channel
is talking about Alex.
- Now batting for New York,
the third baseman,
number 13, Alex Rodriguez.
[crowd booing]
- I was somewhat prepared
for that type of reaction,
because at that point,
I'd been going
to opponents' ballpark
and getting booed everywhere.
That's just par
for the course.
[cheering]
[tense music]
♪
But this was different.
This wasn't about, like, hey,
you're gonna beat my team.
This was like, hey,
I don't like you.
So it was different.
[crowd chanting]
[cheering]
- Well, this is the first time
we've seen something like this
since Alex Rodriguez returned,
and I think we can say
with some certainty what
the intent was after Dempster
hit him on the 3-0 pitch.
I mean, this is
a little bit unusual.
- It's uncomfortable.
You knew this was gonna
happen at some point.
- And it affected you.
- Yeah, but on the field--
I'm okay on the field.
It's kind of a strange thing.
Like, on the field,
I can roll with anything.
- Now he hits a deep drive.
Straightaway center field,
and gone!
[cheering]
He's hit a lot of them
in his career,
but I bet you he enjoyed
that one more than most.
- It was a hard day today,
that's for sure.
A long day.
- How angry were you
when you got hit?
- Yeah, I was pissed off.
- Another hit for Rodriguez.
- Considering how many
players have spoken out
about you playing
through your suspension,
are you concerned
about this moving forward?
- My hardest time
was off the field.
You know, dealing with
all the distractions.
It's been crazy.
I'm gonna do my very best
to focus on baseball.
Every day there was, like,
20 different stories.
Calling you all these names,
calling you Pablo Escobar,
calling you Whitey Bulger.
Somebody else said
there's a RICO case open,
like, all these kind of
very aggressive allegations.
I mean, we live in a world
where people believe
everything they read.
And I'm like, dude,
I just crossed the line.
But like,
I'm not Whitey Bulger.
Like, I've never committed
a crime in my life.
- Alex Rodriguez here
has created a stir
as he made his way
to the batter's box.
- That was tough for us.
My job, I said before, was to
try to limit distraction,
and in this particular case,
I mean, how do you stop it?
I feel bad, like I said.
I mean, I'd much rather
not be sitting here
talking about suspensions.
I'd rather be sitting here
talking about a baseball game.
- It's official--
Alex Rodriguez is no longer
on speaking terms
with the Yankees front office
because of the possibility
of a looming lawsuit.
- Alex Rodriguez taking aim
at Major League Baseball,
accusing them
of a smear campaign
to destroy his reputation.
- He's suing people.
He's suing
Major League Baseball,
and threatened
to sue the Yankees.
He's going down
with guns blazing.
- It was a war against the
union, the owners, the league.
And I was right
in the middle of it.
- It's a little like watching
an accident in slow motion
over the last couple of weeks.
You know when
the event is over,
somebody's gonna be hurt.
You don't know
whether it's just A-Rod,
the Yankees, Major League
Baseball, or all of the above.
- Yeah, it was
a soap opera, man.
I mean, it was a complete mess.
- 'Cause it was long
and nasty and expensive
and, without a question,
the worst time of my life.
- Strike three.
- And then we went
to arbitration
and fought that 211.
- Yankees third baseman
Alex Rodriguez
goes before a Major League
Baseball arbitrator today
to argue that
his 211-game suspension
should be called off.
- They lay out their case,
we lay out our case,
but we didn't get anywhere.
I mean, they--they
kicked our ass publicly
and in--and in the courtroom.
- It was revealed
during arbitration
the Rodriguez team admitted
paying $305,000 for evidence.
- You know, obviously,
when it first happens,
you're gonna do whatever you
gotta do
to try to make things
what's supposedly right.
- We had hired an attorney
who hired, I guess
an investigative company.
And that investigative
company said
that there was a hard drive
that was available
that had a series
of information on it,
and if we wanted to--to buy it.
And we said yes.
- Was there any valuable
information on that?
- It was blank.
- I mean, at the end of
the day, I'm a ballplayer,
and I didn't know
how to handle it.
It was--it was difficult.
- Rodriguez wanted MLB's
commissioner, Bud Selig,
to testify during
this arbitration.
Well, today,
the arbitrator decided
Selig does not
have to testify.
- How do you force the issue?
- We don't.
I mean, you know,
we can't, you know,
go kidnap him in Milwaukee
and bring him here.
- I remember feeling
angry and frustrated.
You know, if you're gonna
give me a lifetime ban
or give me a 211 ban, I mean,
we deserve to hear from you.
But when he didn't show up,
I knew we were cooked.
- Sports Radio 66
and 101.9 FM, WFAN ♪
- A-Rod, welcome. How are you?
- I've been better.
- Tell me what happened today.
- Well, we got a
ruling that, uh,
the commissioner does not have
to come in from Milwaukee.
And I lost my mind.
I banged a table and kicked
a briefcase
and slammed out of the room
and--and just
felt like the system--
I knew it was restricted,
and I knew it wasn't fair.
But what we saw today
- A-Rod is
his own worst enemy.
He always has been.
[sighs] He's got a flaw.
PEDs--they said you did
mountains of PEDs.
Did you do any?
- No.
- Did you obstruct a witness?
- There was no obstruction.
There was no intimidating.
There was none of that.
- None of this?
- None of that.
- So they don't--there's
not one thing you did?
- No.
- Hey, I'd be fighting, too,
if that's the case.
He didn't say no quietly.
He came to my show and swore
up and down, on the air,
off the air,
that he was telling the truth.
It's outrageous
if you're lying,
and it's outrageous if
they're wrong and they didn't--
you didn't do anything.
That's even more outrageous.
So somebody's
really badly wrong here.
I said, you realize
that if you're lying,
you're never gonna
climb out of this.
And he was in such a,
you know, belligerent mood.
That day, all he wanted to do
was tear Selig's head off.
- The man from Milwaukee that
put this suspension on me
with--with not one bit
of evidence,
something I didn't do,
he doesn't have the courage
to come look at me
in the eye and tell me,
this is why I did 211?
I shouldn't serve one inning.
And I felt like in many ways,
while I was guilty,
I thought I was
backed into a corner.
Think about what
I've been through.
If you are any other player
of the 13 players,
with what I've been through,
do you think anybody's
gonna fight
Major League Baseball?
- I don't think anybody has the
money to do it, first of all.
I don't think he's vindictive.
I don't think he's hateful.
I think he just
doesn't get it sometimes.
I didn't know if you
were innocent or guilty,
because let's be honest,
we know hundreds
of baseball players
did steroids.
And you did steroids once,
so I don't know if you
did steroids again or not.
That's your business.
- I knew what I was doing,
and I thought
I can thread the needle.
And, you know,
Bud Selig said, no way.
You are gonna get suspended
for 211 games.
This has been a disgusting
process for everyone,
and I'm more embarrassed
than anyone
to be on the front pages
in the news.
This is the game that
I love more than anything,
and I feel like, this is what
I have my PhD in, is baseball.
- Even in his darkest day,
I felt bad for him.
I probably shouldn't have,
but I did,
because I saw
a vulnerability there.
Hey, I appreciate
you coming in.
And I guess we'll find out
what's gonna happen.
This is obviously not the end
of this by any stretch.
He didn't see, I don't think,
any other way out
at that point.
It's like he had gone
too far with the story
to change the story,
until he had no choice
but to change the story.
[clock ticking]
- Yesterday, one of the best
baseball players of all time
was hit with the longest
doping suspension in history.
After a contentious
private hearing,
Major League Baseball's
arbitration judge
took the Yankee third baseman
out of the game
all of next season.
- In my judgment, his actions
were beyond comprehension.
You put all the drug things
on one side,
and then all the things that
he did to, in my--
impede our investigation.
I think 211 games
was a very fair penalty.
[tense music]
- I was so pissed when I saw
Bud Selig not show up
for the arbitration,
not show up when I called
for a man-to-man meeting alone,
but he shows up
on "60 Minutes."
And I was just like,
okay, this is--
it is what it is.
You know, thank God
the arbiter dropped it to 162.
- His attorney tells ABC News
he will file a new lawsuit
to overturn A-Rod's historic
162-game suspension,
handed down by an arbitrator
this weekend.
- You know when you keep
running from a problem,
and you want the thing
to go away,
the only way
it's gonna go away
is when you face the music
and it's over.
That's basically
where we were at.
Four- or five-hour phone calls
with lawyers
for eight, nine months,
it takes a toll on you.
You start asking yourself,
with everything
you have gone through,
where you've come from,
what you've been
able to accomplish,
and everything we're doing,
where are we?
You put yourself
into this mess.
You gotta take ownership
for yourself.
[pensive music]
- Good people in
my life that--
that were trying to help me.
But the one that
stands out is--
is Jim Sharp.
- I like him.
He has been a good friend
to me, and I have to him.
He's been tested.
And this steroid problem,
I think, was the depth for him.
- Jim has a very good
relationship with--
with Rob Manfred.
He called me, and at this time,
he wasn't representing me yet.
And he said, Alex,
I'm concerned because
not only are you ruining
your baseball career,
but you're starting
to screw up your life.
- You can find yourself,
as they say, in a hole,
and if you do, quit digging.
It looked to me
like by lawyering up
and filing a bunch of lawsuits,
what we were doing
was nurturing it.
I told him, you know,
you've got to understand,
this is serious, of course,
but it's not a crime
or anything.
This is a rule in baseball,
and you don't have to treat it
so seriously
that you're trying
to impress the client
by being assertive and--
and aggressive.
In fact, from the beginning,
I thought the best way
to do this was to back away
and let it get some hair on it.
- I called him back and
I said, hey, I need your help.
I'm certain I'm done
with my baseball career,
but can you help me
get my life back together?
And he said, yeah.
If it's okay with you,
let me call
Rob Manfred in the morning.
- The next morning, I had a
meeting with the commissioner.
He said,
what can I do for you?
I said, I understand you've
finished your investigation.
Yeah, he said.
Lord, I'm so glad
that it's done.
I said, I'll tell you
what you can do.
You can let me see it.
He asked me, he said,
what are you up to?
I said, let me see it,
and I think within 48 hours,
I'm going to start
dismissing all these cases,
if I can get the authority
to do it.
I looked at it
about five minutes.
That was all I needed.
I left and I called Alex.
- And he said, I think
I have a plan together.
We should put all
these lawsuits
and just put them down.
And then that's exactly when
I threw up the white flag.
- It's been revealed that
the Yankees third baseman has
withdrawn his lawsuit against
Major League Baseball,
the commissioner Bud Selig,
and the Players Association,
which for all intents and
purposes signals his surrender
and acceptance of
the 162-game suspension
that was handed down
- I said, that's it.
It's over.
This is a fucked-up way
to end a pretty good career.
For the first time
in 20-plus years,
I wasn't in spring training.
And then I started
seeing the games start,
and I'm watching every night
on YES Network.
I was like,
this is really strange.
[somber music]
I remember waking up
one night, and I'm like,
I'm the only dumbass
in the world
that has pocket aces
and figures out a way
how to lose the hand.
I mean, you have
hundreds of millions
of dollars guaranteed to you.
You have three MVPs,
you have a world championship.
Your legacy is cemented.
You're going straight
to the Hall of Fame.
And then I crossed the line,
and I caused myself
all of that,
plus the embarrassment
and the shame
and my reputation.
I cringe when I think about
how much I've hurt myself,
and I have no one
to blame but myself.
And
♪
Yeah, I mean, looking back at
it now, it was like
why?
Yeah.
♪
I'll never forget, I was
looking at those mountains,
and it felt like, you're never
gonna be able to climb it.
And to a degree,
I was like, why am I here?
I've already ruined everything.
It was a blessing that
I had started with Dr. David
prior to the Miami
news article breaking.
It was good to have him
by my side at that time.
We spent hours
and hours and hours
on the Yankees,
the suspension, Bud Selig.
There was so much hate there.
I was really angry inside.
Still, I wasn't,
like, at that place
where I was
accepting everything.
Dr. David would, like, put
a quick stop to that and just--
he would always turn it back
to me and says,
what was your--what was
your part in this?
And at first, I just really
rejected that way of thinking.
I wasn't thinking clearly.
I was, um
I was the victim.
And just missing things.
Just, like, not seeing things.
Well, Major League Baseball
had something against me,
versus, like, I screwed up,
and they were doing their jobs.
And if I didn't screw up,
even if they wanted to hurt me,
they--they couldn't hurt me.
And how there's a cause and
effect of my actions, you know?
And then, you know, months,
months, and years later,
I started feeling like, okay.
I understand exactly what
happened here, and it's on me.
But that was a long bridge
to walk,
a lot of work, a lot of time.
[ethereal music]
I mean, we went all
the way back to--to birth,
early days in New York.
He said, tell me about Victor.
Oh, well, Victor, man, he was--
I was on that couch
right there.
Oh, Victor, he was
really smart, good-looking,
really good with numbers,
loved baseball.
We used to love
playing baseball together.
He said, man,
you're so full of shit.
Which I was, 'cause I was
dancing around it.
I was still
kind of bullshitting,
like, protecting my dad.
The first time that
it hit me, like, hard
was when I would have to go
and do my writing assignments.
He would give me
homework assignments,
and I would have to
come up with vignettes
where I would have these mock
conversations with my father.
And I would tell him,
I'm a terrible writer, so.
And he says, it's not the point
about how good of a writer
you are, it's about
your emotions.
So I said, okay.
Now, I'm, like,
eight years old here, okay?
[chuckles] How are you, my son?
I say, I'm not doing well, Dad.
Why not, son?
Because you abandoned us--
Mom, Joe, Suzy, me.
When we needed you most,
you left us.
I was only ten.
My father--that's not
the case at all, son.
I love you.
You're my prince,
my number one.
I say, really?
You're full of shit, Dad.
My dad says, but son,
I've always loved you.
We were attached at the hip
when we lived in New York
and DR from age one to ten.
Then your mom, Miami,
it was tough, you know?
Look, I don't expect you
to understand this.
These are the things
that occurred back then.
I say, Victor--
not Dad, Victor--
stop.
You're bullshitting me.
You're full of shit.
You've done it for 43 years.
Enough is enough.
You've lied to me from day one.
That's why
I'm so full of shit myself.
I grew up around it.
I thought I can get away
with everything like you,
bullshit myself through life.
My dad says,
what are you talking about?
How about 2014, my full-year
suspension for using PEDs,
then acting like
a fucking asshole,
doubling down,
blaming everyone?
Sounds familiar yet?
Does it remind you
of anyone, Dad?
Dads says, I'm gonna go now.
Hmm.
Of course you are.
That's par for the course.
Except for one big difference.
This time, I'm ready. Goodbye.
Don't fucking come back.
Let's hit it.
- I always bring up the guys
who have it really together--
Jeter, Peyton Manning,
Tom Brady.
Very strong families,
very strong parenting.
A-Rod didn't have that.
[pensive music]
♪
- I think when you don't
have a sense of self,
and you're a young person
trying to fit in,
you could take the path of
adjusting your personality,
your likes and dislikes
and your behavior,
according to the company
that you keep.
- I think he was
kind of an immature guy.
He missed a lot
of developmental steps,
when you're in your 20s,
and suddenly
you're making so much money
and you're a big deal,
and that's hard.
That's really hard
for people, I think.
And if they don't have this
solid foundation of people
in their lives--
maybe a father figure,
for Alex, who was missing--
it is very destabilizing
to have that level
of fame and attention.
So I think all these things
contribute to--
to maybe not feeling completely
secure in who you are.
- From the age of 19,
for 162 nights,
he was on TV
for three and a half hours,
and you were watching him.
And then you followed him
into the locker room
for another 45 minutes,
and you were watching him.
- We didn't know
how to handle his fame,
'cause there's
not a playbook to it.
And so it was--it was trying
for all of us in that respect.
- You know, the difference
between Alex and I is,
I learned a lot
playing with my dad,
watching him.
You know, how to
set up pitchers,
how to be a pro,
how to do all these things.
I'm looking at someone
that I look like
and who loves me for me--
not for what I do, just for me.
- When I was in Little League,
I used to always look
for my parents in the stands,
and it just
made me comfortable.
It was the same thing when
I was in the Major Leagues.
I looked for my parents.
It made me comfortable.
- I think it comes back to the
kid whose dad wasn't there.
He chases acceptance.
He wants to be accepted,
and he wants to be loved.
And you keep score with
success, homers and RBIs
and batting average,
maybe money.
- He wanted so much
to be respected and loved.
And he wanted everything,
and he seeks it
in the worst ways,
the worst ways,
that backfired terribly.
I mean, it's just part of him,
and I think that's--
in a lot of ways,
it's been his curse.
- I just don't think
he had that perspective
or that parent to, like,
pull him aside
and say, what are you doing?
That's where
the self-confidence comes in
and the groundedness and the
rootedness of somebody's,
like, moral fiber.
And he was lacking
in those areas.
He just was.
I don't know, they might
have still gone that way.
Maybe his father
didn't have skills
that he would have needed.
Maybe he didn't.
Maybe he wouldn't have
suffered the loss of his dad
but maybe he wouldn't have
been aggressively trying
to become the best he could.
Otherwise, I mean,
who knows, right?
- I'm not sure if I would
have accomplished what I did
on the field
with a present father,
but I certainly think that
having a present father
would have helped me avoid
some of the dumbass decisions
that I've made.
Being here, like, at ground
zero, just keeps you honest.
And I would say that my entire
mission, post-Dr. David,
basically comes down
to two things,
and I think about these
two things every single day.
One is decreasing,
diminishing your ego,
and the other one is
increasing self-awareness.
Before Dr. David,
it was opposite.
And Dr. David, we would
always tell each other,
watch me here
and don't let me get slippery.
Making sure you're saying what
you mean and mean what you say,
like, all these things are--
they sound, like, so basic.
But the truth of the matter
was, they weren't basic to me.
Thank God that
I finally learned,
'cause if I didn't,
I wouldn't be here.
I thought you were
so much better
once we got on the real road,
after the reps.
- I thought you were
gonna say than Tashi.
- [laughs]
- I--I am though, right?
- Actually, I think
at this point,
you're more advanced
than Tashi.
When I served my suspension,
one of the most
pivotal moments
was when I sat Natasha
and Ella down in my office,
and I'm telling them
what happened
and why I'm serving
a suspension.
[gentle music]
It was really important for me
to be as honest as I can be
for an 11 and 7-year-old.
And not bullshit them,
because I never wanted them
to feel like
they have to bullshit Dad.
And I remember
they both gave me a hug.
And they said, uh,
don't worry, Dad,
you can do this.
And Ella, who was five, said,
Dad, you don't need
anybody's help.
You can still hit home runs.
- He's always said to me,
he's like,
you can tell me anything.
Whatever you're going through,
I've done worse.
And so he's like,
I don't care what you try,
what experience
you have with people.
He's like, I've done worse.
And so that's always kind of
been like a safety blanket.
[indistinct chatter]
- All phones, everything's
disconnected here, right?
Like, no
- Yes, Dad.
- Snap, WhatsApp,
none of the messages.
- Okay, here we go.
- You need your full attention.
You're gonna go straight.
- I do think he's become
so much more aware.
From what I've heard about him
back in those years
was that, like, he just, like,
could not put his pride aside,
was just a mess, kind of.
Like, I--he's even
showed me, like,
old clips and stuff
of him speaking,
and it's just not
the same person.
Like, he's truly, like,
evolved in that sense.
- That's good.
That was a little jerky beef.
- [laughing] What?
- I think when
for a big part of your life,
you're a narcissist--
and I say
I'm a recovering narcissist.
That was foreign for me,
to, uh
lean into being a father.
Quite honestly, I don't know
if I could be a good parent
without Dr. David.
I didn't have a dad
that I can copy and paste.
I was, like, shooting darts
in the--in the dark,
hoping for the best.
And he helped
every facet of my life.
He made me a better baseball
player, a better teammate,
more humble, full of gratitude.
And we thought about
quitting baseball.
It was like, maybe I just try
to piece my life back together
but maybe just disappear
and not--
and not play again.
I thought it was obvious
the Yankees
didn't want me to come back.
You never have to
face the music again.
You don't have to
face your demons.
You don't have to go back
to stadiums and get booed,
and I would've disappeared.
[exhales]
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I didn't wanna be remembered
for my darkest moment.
I thought, after being
body-slammed at 40 years old,
broken down, when nobody
thinks I can do it
That the comeback matters too.
[Jefferson Starship's
"Find Your Way Back"]
That season was probably
the single most
important season in my life.
And I'll never forget this.
As I drove to the stadium,
I made a promise to myself--
whether I go 4 for 4
or 0 for 4,
I'm gonna enjoy it,
because I do not know
when they're gonna
take the uniform away again.
- You know it's been
a long, long road ♪
- This is his first appearance
in a big league game
since the end of 2013.
- I never thought
we'd see him again, ever.
I thought
he'd never play again.
I thought he'd never be
in the public eye again.
- That one is driven out to
right center, and A-Rod gets
his first hit of the season.
[cheering]
- But, you know,
Alex does have--
he's got cubes.
- High drive, left field.
There it goes!
- I'm 40 years old.
I'm out of jail.
I'm a fucking New York Yankee.
- Here's the throw.
Here's the play.
- Nice!
- He's in there!
- And I went out and had one
of the best years of my career.
- This one is off the top
of the wall, and gone!
- He tried to make
amends with people,
and he also accepted blame.
If he tried to, like,
A-Rod himself through it,
I don't think
it would have worked,
but I think he was
pretty genuine.
- 1-1.
Lined into right center field.
That's a base hit.
It'll go to the wall!
That'll tie the score.
♪
Number 660.
Home run number 661 breaks
the tie with Willie Mays,
and it breaks the tie
- You come back from
a year's suspension
and have 33 home runs.
It shows how great the guy is.
- Pop fly ball.
Deep down the center.
There it goes!
Yeah!
A grand slam.
[cheering]
- I said, you're Lazarod.
You just rose from the dead.
People don't
come back from this.
- He's only the second man
in history to get 2,000 RBIs.
- Not only does he come back,
but he's come back
more popular than ever before.
He was dead!
There's no coming back
from that, and somehow he did.
- Find your way back ♪
- It's carrying.
It's back near the wall,
and just like Derek Jeter,
his 3,000th hit is a home run.
[cheering]
- Find your way back ♪
[muffled chatter]
- I'm on a journey of being
a man with integrity and
character, and someone that--
that you can bet on
and you can trust.
You can go a whole lifetime
without changing a fucking 5%.
And the fact that
I've changed so much,
I can only credit Dr. David
for putting up with me.
So even though Dr. David
is not around anymore,
he still lives in me.
If Dr. David was here,
I'd be ragging on him,
and I'd give him a big hug,
and try to make him feel really
uncomfortable around you guys.
And then I would give him
a bunch of compliments,
and he would tell me to stop.
He hates that.
He doesn't want it.
He's a very, very
private person.
That's why you gotta--
like, we're in the middle
of nowhere here in Evergreen,
and this--
where the sessions are.
But I--[clears throat]
[exhales]
He was so tough on me.
He was really hard on me.
I thought too hard, at times.
But in the end,
I know why he was doing it.
He saved my life.
[gentle music]
♪
- The last two seasons,
and as Jack alluded to, 2015,
a Renaissance season.
33 home runs
and drove in 86 runs.
But this season,
limited to 62 games,
just 9 home runs,
3 for 30 since
- He was getting beat a
little bit with the fastball.
Once that happens
and you're an older player
- The Yankees said
he was overmatched,
and when you put that
classification on a player,
you're not gonna use
that player very often.
[cameras shutters snapping]
- I love this game,
and I love this team.
And today, I'm saying
goodbye to both.
- Talking with
Hal Steinbrenner here
on "The Michael Kay Show."
Every account
in the media, Hal,
is that this was very cordial,
and it was
not confrontational.
- Just wanted to have an
honest conversation with him
and convey to him
kind of where we're going,
that we're gonna start
to bring up young players.
With that happening,
in all likelihood,
it's not gonna mean that he's
gonna be getting more at-bats.
And he understood that.
He understood that.
- I wanna thank my mom,
who's watching at home,
and my daughters, my family,
my friends,
former managers,
coaches, teammates.
Thank you for your support.
You've been through
so much with me.
- I cried when he said
he was gonna retire.
I was so sad for him.
I didn't want him to retire.
It was, like, sad for me
to see him finish.
But on the flip side of that,
I respected him
for walking away
when he was still, you know,
agile and able to play.
[thunder rumbling]
- Please welcome
to the field number 13.
[cheers and applause]
[somber music]
- He's grown a lot, man.
We've all grown.
We've just been able to figure
out that it was all necessary
for us to be where we are today
with our kids,
with our family.
Yeah.
[chuckles]
Yeah, Alex is a good person.
He's good.
[cheering]
- He probably wishes he
could do things over again,
because I tell you,
he'd be a Hall-of-Famer
on the first ballot.
- The 2-2.
Line drive, base hit!
[cheering]
Souza cannot cut it off.
It'll go to the wall!
Gardner will score.
He has an RBI double,
and the Yankees
have tied the game at 1.
♪
- He probably should
get in now.
I know a lot of people
feel different,
but I'm not a baseball purist.
[cheering]
- Swing and a miss.
Betances strikes out the side,
and the Yankees win 6 to 3,
and Alex Rodriguez
goes out with a victory.
One of the greatest careers
in baseball history,
and it concludes
in pinstripes tonight.
- The first time that
I knew Dr. David's work
was really working,
I was, like,
4 home runs shy of 700.
And my instinct said,
come on, Hal.
Let me just get four more,
man.
Four more, and I can do it.
Give me--give me a month.
I've worked so hard for this.
And I thought about it
for, like, five minutes.
And I said, you know what?
696 with the Yankees
was greater than 700
with another uniform on.
I think the way I handled that
made me really, really proud,
because A-Rod would still
be playing right now.
- So the curtain comes down on
the complicated but brilliant
career of Alex Rodriguez.
- I think that
after the suspension,
he retired in peace.
And while he may never,
you know,
step foot in the Hall of Fame,
I just think he was
a Hall-of-Famer day one,
you know?
- Only a fool would say
A-Rod wasn't a great player.
He won three MVPs.
He's in the top 10 or top 20
in most statistics.
He had 3,000 hits.
He had 2,000 RBIs.
He had 2,000 runs scored.
He had 696 home runs.
He won Gold Gloves
at shortstop.
Even with those numbers,
as outstanding and amazing
as they are, not gonna happen.
Not gonna happen.
And that's the blessings
and the curse,
and that's what makes him
that Shakespearean figure.
[cheering]
♪
- What was going through your
mind as you made that walk?
- Well, it was exciting.
That's--that's where I played,
you know,
a lot of my baseball over here.
That's where we won
the World Championship in 2009.
And, uh--
[cheering]
♪
This is my favorite moment,
when my girls come out.
I mean, through it all, to be
able to have that opportunity
to close my career like this,
I felt an incredible amount
of gratitude.
I'll cherish that
for the rest of my life,
to walk out of that stadium
with a full house,
with a standing ovation,
with my head high.
And in the middle
of that suspension,
I felt that was
an impossibility.
I can't say enough
about these fans.
Um--
[cheering]
I've given these fans a lot
of headaches over the years,
and I've disappointed
a lot of people.
But like I've always said,
you don't have to be
defined by your mistakes.
How you come back matters too.
[cheering]
♪
- I believe you are
defined by your mistakes,
but you are also
further defined
by how you mend your mistakes.
You can never get rid of it.
There's not a full erasure.
I don't think you ever
get out from under them,
but you could write
another chapter.
- Like, we have to
always mitigate risk.
But also, I don't see any risk
whatsoever on that, because
- You know, it's funny.
In some regards,
he's really landed a lot better
than I ever thought possible.
If I had told you then that
he'd be doing network baseball
as a broadcaster,
I mean, that's a very
visible, coveted position.
- Would you ever think this
is a guy who would go out
with Warren Buffett and own
a professional sports team
and be an incredible success
business-wise?
[indistinct chatter]
He's got two adoring
daughters that he loves.
If he's looking
for more than this,
I'm gonna have to
slap him around.
He's doing okay.
- Send those next.
Send those.
- I guess the question
I'd ask him is,
have you finally
found yourself?
Are you finally comfortable
with who you are?
- In a weird way,
that suspension,
you know, thinking about it
ten years later,
while I cringed
and I'm embarrassed
and I burned bridges,
someday--not quite yet--
I'll be able to say
that's the best thing
that happened in my life.
Because I took that opportunity
to pause,
turn the lens inward
And I've come out
on the other side.
Not a Hall-of-Famer,
which sucks,
but a happier person.
[dramatic music]
♪
[laughter]
I was in there for a really,
really long time,
and I thought
it was everything.
But
it's the Hall of Fame.
It's not heaven.
[crowd shouting]
I know the haters are saying--
they're saying,
like, yeah, BS,
I don't believe it.
I'm sure there's people
watching here that are like,
what do you call it?
Like, hate-watch.
And no matter what I say,
they're gonna spin it
to why they're gonna
hate me more, right?
They're gonna think
I'm slippery,
and they're gonna find
something in this documentary
to say, see, I told you so.
That's why
that guy's an asshole.
I don't trust him.
I don't like him.
And that's fine.
But I'm done saying I'm sorry.
I'm done.
Like, new day.
Moving on.
A fucking new decade.
I'm in a great place,
and I sit in my gratitude
and my humility
to move forward,
and I choose to ignore those
who will always be haters.
God bless you.
♪
[dramatic orchestral music]
♪
[bright tone]