This past Sunday during ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball with Kay-Rod alternate broadcast on ESPN2, analyst Álex Rodríguez, as per usual, demonstrated an aspect of the game to viewers. Rodríguez, an accomplished slugger with close to 700 major league home runs, appears on the broadcast throughout the season with New York Yankees television play-by-play announcer and ESPN New York 98.7 radio host, Michael Kay. Together, the duo welcomes special guests and presents the game in a different way, utilizing the chemistry they fostered while Kay covered Rodríguez during his playing career.
On the most recent edition of the broadcast, Rodríguez described the technique to hit a baseball and how he changed his approach depending on whether or not he was taking batting practice. In the demonstration, he emphasized the difference between facing Larry Bowa throwing 55 mph compared to Roger Clemens firing fastballs at 95 mph and then made a seemingly abstruse and tasteless analogy.
“In batting practice, I’m coming at the ball from here; posture up and right down,” Rodríguez said. “You can’t get in trouble; it’s like you’re punching a little person with your right hand. It’s going – boom – right there with that knee down, and now you’re on top of the baseball.”
While Rodríguez quickly faced some backlash for the manner in which he spoke about hitting, it did not seem to make the impression some people expected it would. On WFAN’s new afternoon program Evan & Tiki, show producer and on-air contributor Shaun Morash emphasized that the lack of reaction underscored an important point about the presentation as a whole.
“I think it also shows us that nobody’s watching that broadcast if this didn’t go bigger,” Morash said.
Roberts, who is an avid fan of the New York Mets, was watching Karl Ravech, Eduardo Pérez and David Cone on the traditional Sunday Night Baseball broadcast at Fenway Park. He had attended one of the matchups over the weekend, sitting on top of the Green Monster, and wanted to see how the rubber match of the series would play out. Although Roberts’ Mets got pummeled 6-1 by the Red Sox, he was invested in the game and did not care what was happening on ESPN2. In fact, he did not even hear about the news until sports media outlet Awful Announcing posted information behind the remark.
“We’re concerned about the game,” Roberts said on behalf of Mets fans, “so we just want to watch the freaking game – we don’t want any interviews or side stories. If it’s a game we care less about, maybe so. I didn’t flip to it for a second – I was glued to, ‘Hey, could the Mets actually win this game?’ Yeah, but apparently A-Rod wants to assault little people.”
Roberts’ co-host Tiki Barber added on to give his thoughts on the odd analogy, especially since he has and will continue to broadcast NFL games this season for CBS Sports. There are times when he has to describe the technicalities behind preventing fumbles in football games, and Barber makes sure to contextualize things in the proper way. He affirmed that he would never use the imagery proffered by Rodríguez on Sunday night.
“When are you thinking about punching a little person? I’m serious,” Barber said. “Why would you say that? I know punching is the key because that’s what you do; you need to punch forward in order to drive. Same thing with golf – [in] your backswing to get the downwards stroke on the ball, you’ve got to punch downwards in a sense.”
Over the years watching him as a player and now as an analyst on ESPN and FOX Sports, Roberts has consistently noticed idiosyncrasies with Rodríguez. As a viewer, he feels that the three-time American League Most Valuable Player award-winner is somewhat peculiar.
“For as good-looking as he may be and as cool as he may be, he is so freaking awkward,” Roberts said. “Everything he does, including describing punching a little person, he kind of reminds me of myself. Not that I would say something like that [Tiki], but I would say something awkward; that’s what I would do.”
