MLB legend Alex Rodriguez has been slammed by former New York Yankees teammate Doug Mientkiewicz over his steroid use and told he will "die a lonely man" in a scathing personal attack.
Rodriguez played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball, appearing for the Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers and Yankees while winning the 2009 World Series. He is also a 14-time All-Star and three-time AL MVP, highlighting the tremendous impact his unique talent had on the sport.
However, Rodriguez was also caught up in the steroid epidemic that is so prevalent within the sport. The 47-year-old - an entrepreneur these days - was suspended for the entire 2014 season due to his use of performance enhancing drugs and has since confessed to using banned substances.
Before he received his ban, Rodriguez and Mientkiewicz were teammates in high school and briefly played alongside one another on the Yankees in 2007 after the latter won the 2004 World Series with the Boston Red Sox. Nowadays though, Mientkiewicz has no love towards Rodriguez and criticised the MLB analyst for his steroid use and personal life during an appearance on the ‘Foul Territory’ podcast.
“It’s painful,” Mientkiewicz told hosts A.J. Pierzynski and Scott Braun. “It’s like, wait a minute, do you (forget) you got suspended 200 games? It’s like, ‘Come on, man. Stop it. I get it.’
“I played a power position and didn’t have any. Did it cross my mind? Of course. You thought about it. But I was like, ‘You know what, I want to be able to walk when I’m 50’.”
The 48-year-old also insinuated that Rodriguez - who tallied 3,115 hits, 2,086 RBIs and 696 home runs in his career - failed to mend broken relationships of his past. Mientkiewicz added: “I’ve always said he’s going to die a lonely man, because, you know what? 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. We still text often, not as often as we should, but we still text, group thread, constantly badgering each other. He’s just distant 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.”
Mientkiewicz defended Rodriguez in the past over steroid accusations, before it emerged his teammate at Miami’s Westminster Christian High School had indeed taken PEDs. Mientkiewicz hit 66 career home runs during his career between 1998 and 2009, spanning 1,087 career at-bats.
