There might soon be another documentary about a prominent recent player for the New York Yankees. Following ESPN’s six-part docuseries The Captain on Derek Jeter, Andrew Marchand of The New York Post reports that Alex Rodriguez is trying to gauge interest in a documentary on his life:
NEWSLETTER+: Alex Rodriguez is shopping a documentary about his life to networks & streamers, The Post has learned.https://t.co/Kp5g4OcWHk
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) April 24, 2023
Here’s more on that from Marchand’s piece, which mentions that Rodriguez (who currently co-hosts the KayRod Cast alternate broadcast with Michael Kay for selected ESPN Sunday Night Baseball games, is a MLB on Fox postseason analyst, and is a part-owner of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves) is working with Religion of Sports‘ Gotham Chopra on this project:
If done right and straightforward, it could be tremendous. Since his comeback, Rodriguez’s go-to move is self-deprecation, but that won’t work in a doc. Like a lot of things in his life, you wonder: Why would A-Rod do that? This is not different. Rodriguez’s past is not forgotten, but it is not at the forefront of people’s minds, and with TV gigs at ESPN and Fox, among others, plus being a part owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves, he appears to be doing quite well. Is it really smart to dredge up the past? But if he doesn’t, it won’t be much of a life story.
There are some good notes there. Rodriguez’s TV career came with general skepticism at first, but much of where he has gained plaudits has been where he’s been open and honest and where he’s demonstrated his particular knowledge of hitting. And that’s worked very well in Fox’s studio setting. But his work with ESPN has taken more criticism, first as a game broadcaster on the main Sunday Night Baseball feed and now on the alternate broadcast. (and also occasionally on non-game studio programming). Rodriguez has also shown himself to be sensitive to media coverage at times.
And it’s notable that some of the controversies around Rodriguez (seen above at Super Bowl LIV in 2020), particularly the Biogenesis steroid scandal, have received their own documentaries, just not with his participation. So if this project does come to fruition (far from a certainty, especially with no network yet attached; it’s worth noting that one particular actually-announced Rodriguez project, interview series Pivot, only turned into a 30-minute special instead of the four-part series initially conceived), it will be interesting to see how it turns out. And that may be especially interesting in terms of how open Rodriguez is to talking about the various controversies during his life.
[The New York Post; photo from Mark J. Rebilas/USA Today Sports]
