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Alex Rodriguez is a divisive figure in the world of baseball.
Whether it’s because of his steroid use, his personality, or his broadcast ability, you either love Rodriguez or you don’t.
But one of his former teammates took things a step too far recently when criticizing the three-time AL MVP and 14-time MLB All-Star.
Doug Mientkiewicz spent nearly a decade in the MLB and won tge World Series with the Red Sox in 2004. He also played high school baseball at Westminster Christian School in Florida and was a teammate of Rodriguez.
On a recent podcast appearance, Mientkiewicz ripped into Rodriguez.
“I always said he’s going to die a lonely man, because this whole ‘father of the year’ stuff, God bless him with his daughters, because it’s got to come a long way. But it’s like, ‘You’re just trying to get into heaven now.’
“I’m still friends with my high school team,” Mientkiewicz continued. “We still text often, not as often as we should, but we still text, group thread, constantly badgering each other and he’s just distanced from it. I don’t care how good or how great you become and how far your career goes, you never forget your high school dudes.
“Like, your high school and your college teammates are brothers till the end. We still talk. We still shoot the s***, but he’s just nowhere to be found, even when we do high school stuff for our coach. Like I said, I have a picture of him sleeping at the table in his Timberwolves shirt. I’m like, ‘Are you serious? Go Wolves. No wonder they suck.’”
Alex Rodriguez Fires Back At Former Teammate Doug Mientkiewicz
But Rodriguez didn’t take the comments lying down.
“There’s always going to be people out there that have things to say, everyone has an opinion, but I certainly would never talk publicly negatively about any of my teammates, especially someone from high school,” Rodriguez said in an interview with Fox 5 NY’s Rosanna Scotto . “I mean, look, we’re almost 50 now. This is supposed to be the good old days when we look back, and we cringe about some of the weird things that we did, and we’re proud of the relationships we built over the years. So, you take that with a grain of salt and you wish everyone well and you move on.”
Rodriguez clearly took more of a high road than Mientkiewicz. But it’s clearly he wasn’t happy about the comments. And who could blame him?