“I wouldn’t do it to a friend,” Derek Jeter once expressed his resentment about friendship with Alex Rodriguez after his 2001 Esquire interview
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Most baseball fans may remember the rivalry between Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. Interestingly, this much-fabled MLB rivalry was one-sided only from Alex Rodriguez’s side. The duo were once quite close, often calling each other friends. This was when A-Rod was in Texas Rangers while Jeter was at the Yankees.
In Jeter’s docuseries The Captain, the Yankees Hall of Famer sheds light on how two of the best showstoppers in MLB started to have a bad relationship. The relationship started going south after Alex Rodriguez’s interview with Esquire in 2001.
In the interview, Alex Rodriguez was pressed by the reporter to mention any rivalry between him and Jeter. While virtually none existed between them, A-Rod succumbed to the mind games of Scott Rabb and spilt some harsh words against his friend Derek Jeter.
Related: Alex Rodriguez admitted how use of PEDs set him back by almost $40 million and Hall of Fame berth
How the Esquire interview drove Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter’s relationship southwards
The rivalry that most fans now speak of all began from one fated interview with Esquire. In 2001, when the interviewer Scott Rabb asked A-Rod about any rivalry between the pair, Rodriguez replied, “No, there’s not a rivalry at all. Not even, I mean rivalry? Like, ours is such a brotherhood that there’s definitely no rivalry there. And it’s weird, because even with my brother [we] have a little rivalry. But with Derek, I’m his biggest fan and I think it’s vice versa.”
When pressed about revealing more information on Jeter, Alex Rodriguez succumbed to the pressure. Perhaps, this might have been the nail to the coffin but he replied, “So he’s never had to lead. He doesn’t have to, he can just go and play and have fun, and hit second. I mean, you know, hitting second is totally different than hitting third or fourth in a lineup because you go into New York trying to stop Bernie [Williams] and [Paul] O’Neill and everybody. You never say, ‘Don’t let Derek beat you.’ That’s never your concern.”
This statement by Alex Rodriguez hurt Jeter really badly. In his docuseries, The Captain, he reveals, “You can say whatever you want about me as a player. That’s fine. But then it goes back to the trust, the loyalty. This is how the guy feels. He’s not a true friend, is how I felt. Because I wouldn’t do it to a friend.”
Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter played together in the Yankees from 2004. Together, the duo has also won a World Series at the Yankees. When the story got published, A-Rod immediately apologized to the Yankees captain. Though he still stands by his comments, he says that he meant them in an objective manner for a great team like the Yankees. He was surprised by how the media blew this story out of proportions.
In case you missed it:
How Alex Rodriguez went from being a controversial MLB star to an emerging business tycoon
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Siddid Dey Purkayastha
(528 Articles Published)