Michael Kay thinks Alex Rodriguez belongs in the Hall of Fame, and he’s got a wild workaround for how to improve the odds.
On Tuesday, Kay floated the idea on his ESPN radio show that Rodriguez should simply return, suit up for one game, take an at-bat and reset the clock on his Hall of Fame candidacy.
“My advice to Alex, come back, activate yourself for one game, get an at-bat and then restart the clock to get yourself another 15 years on the ballot,” Kay said Tuesday on his ESPN radio show.
Kay even suggested the Seattle Mariners might be willing to make it happen, since Rodriguez was back in Seattle over the weekend for the franchise’s 50th-anniversary celebration. He was honored during a pregame ceremony for the team’s top 50 players and got a standing ovation from the crowd.
Rodriguez’s Hall of Fame case remains tied to his admitted use of performance-enhancing drugs. He has never received more than 37% of the vote, far short of the 75% needed for election. The three-time AL MVP has five more years left on the ballot, and after completing his fifth year in January, he can remain eligible for as many as 10 total years if he keeps clearing the 5% threshold.
Kay said the argument for Rodriguez would look very different if not for the PED issue.
“If Alex never did performance-enhancing drugs, we would be talking about him as one of the greatest players who ever lived,” Kay said.
He also noted just how massive Rodriguez’s career numbers are. A natural shortstop who shifted to third base after being traded to the Yankees, Rodriguez finished with 696 home runs, which ranks fifth all-time behind only Barry Bonds, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Albert Pujols.
Kay’s bigger point was that time might eventually soften the voting pool. In his view, younger voters could be more willing to back Rodriguez than the older group that has long drawn a hard line against PED users.
“Five years you have to wait before you get on the ballot,” Kay said. “Then the voting bloc of older voters that hold firm about not putting in PED users, they die off.
Younger people that don’t feel the same way, they enter the voting block, and maybe you get to 75%. But I don’t think you get to 75% now.”
He also grouped Rodriguez with Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens as players who would be automatic choices if the Hall were simply ranking the 20 best players in baseball history. But in Kay’s view, the PED connection keeps all three outside Cooperstown for now.
“And for those that think, once they get to the Veterans Committee, they’re going to get in, no they’re not,” Kay said. “These are the people that hold even more enmity toward people that used PEDs, so Rocket’s not getting in, Bonds is not getting in, and even in a Veterans Committee 10 years from now, I don’t think Alex is getting in.
“One at-bat, restart your clock, give yourself a better chance.”
The irony is that Rodriguez himself has said he wouldn’t necessarily feel complete if he ever made it to Cooperstown. In a conversation with The Athletic, he said he would feel “hollow inside” if he were voted in.
“I have a life today that I didn’t have for the first 40 years,” Rodriguez said, referring to his personal life journey with therapy. “If I went to the Hall of Fame, in a weird way, I would be hollow inside.
I would still be in a lot of pain... I would rather have what I have today, because it really helped me unlock a lot of the work that I needed to do.”
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