When the VMAs honored Jennifer Lopez, it was a safe bet her beau, Alex Rodriguez, would be on hand to celebrate the 2018 Video Vanguard Award winner. What we never expected was A-Rod becoming one of the best memes of the 2018 when he was caught recording J. Lo’s performance on his iPhone. He’d like you to know the ball busting courtesy of friends and family paled in comparison to what he usually deals with.
“I get shit for a lot worse things than that,” says Rodriguez.
We caught up with the ESPN and Fox Sports baseball analyst in Los Angeles earlier this week at the Jeep Wrangler Celebrity Customs Reveal Event, where he competed with other celebs like Jalen Rose and Maria Menounos to see who could create the ultimate customized Jeep Wrangler. The SUV enthusiast—“I’ve driven Jeep basically my whole entire life, and I love it,” Rodriguez says—talked to us about what baseball needs to do to attract younger fans, why the month of October is always crazy, and how it felt to become a meme.
(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)
Overall, is baseball in good shape, or is there still a lot the game has to improve if it wants to ensure its health for decades to come?
Yes, I think so, because the economics of baseball have never been better. It’s gone from $1 billion [in revenue] to $10 billion annually. As far as talent, the talent has never been as supreme. There’s young talent everywhere. I think our challenges are few: Our average fan is a 58-year-old white male. We need to get younger, obviously, with our demographic. And there’s other things, like pace of the game. But I actually think the style of baseball being played today is a bit steadfast and there’s more action that needs to be. Hopefully that can change. But that’s all things that are very changeable. The other thing is we need to open the floodgates for more access for our fans. Our players getting miced. Marketing, I would love to see almost 24/7 access in the bullpens. If you think about the marathon, the journey of 162 [games], take that journey, which they call a negative, take that negative and turn it into a positive and create all this content.
Why is the baseball postseason arguably the biggest crapshoot of any major postseason?
Just because you have the best player in the world, like Barry Bonds or Mike Trout, it doesn’t guarantee you success in October—unlike LeBron or Michael Jordan having the basketball 80 percent of the time and being clutch. Or Tom Brady has the chance to win it. You don’t get that luxury. In baseball, they can just walk you.
Your MVPs?
In the AL, I think Mookie Betts pretty much has secured that. I think National League, believe it or not, is still up in the air. Somebody can still have an amazing last week. Especially in the National League West, there are still so many unanswered questions. You can have somebody that brings it home and makes a big impact, so it’s still open.
Cy Youngs?
You can go so many ways. For a while it was Chris Sale, and then he got hurt. [Blake] Snell has been amazing. There’s three or four guys. Look, I don’t want to hedge because I’m not working right now, but I’d go with Snell.
Should teams celebrate advancing to every round of the playoffs with champagne showers? Because fans get mad on social media and question why teams are having these big celebrations after advancing past the Wild Card game or the Division Series but haven’t really won anything yet.
Our job is to educate the fans a little bit to let them know that players play 200 games in 232 days, and when you accomplish something like that, it’s really just a release. You really just want to enjoy it, have a beer, get drunk, reset, and go [to the next round]. So I don’t mind that.
How much crap did you get from friends and family over that meme/GIF from the VMAs?
That’s the least of my concerns. I get shit for a lot worse things than that. But, yeah, that was fun, and I got a lot of laughs out of that.
