No doubt, some conspiracy theories will emerge in the aftermath of Alex Rodriguez’s announcement Sunday that he will retire as an active player after appearing in Friday’s game between the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium. The guy has twice turned up in the middle of baseball’s long-running steroid scandal and he did come back in 2015 from a one-year suspension to hit 33 homers during the season he turned 40, so there are going to be whispers. But this probably is what it appears to be. Rodriguez is four home runs short of 700 and he is signed through the end of the 2017 season, but his performance took a dramatic nosedive this season and his playing time for the now-rebuilding Yankees had declined precipitously along with it. So, there is some logic to his decision to bow out gracefully soon after teammmate Mark Teixeira announced that he will retire at the end of the 2016 season. It’s just going to be hard for some fans to accept that A-Rod would be satisfied to walk away without becoming the fourth player in major league history to hit his 700th home run.
Alex Rodriguez retires among speculation of failed drug test
