Written By Brandon Griggs and Euan McKirdy at CNN.com
Alex Rodriguez’s turbulent career as one of baseball’s most talented and polarizing sluggers appears to be over.
The New York Yankees announced Sunday that A-Rod will play in his final major league game Friday at Yankee Stadium as the Yankees take on the Tampa Bay Rays. After the game, the 41-year-old Rodriguez will be released from his player contract and become a special adviser and instructor with the Yankees through December 31, 2017.
“This is a tough day. I love this game and I love this team,” an emotional Rodriguez said at a press conference at Yankee Stadium, where he was not in Sunday’s starting lineup. “Today, I’m saying goodbye to both. I never thought I could play for 22 years.”
The three-time MVP nears retirement with 3,114 hits and 696 home runs, good enough for fourth on the all-time homer list behind Barry Bonds (762), Hank Aaron (755) and Babe Ruth (714). He was voted to the All-Star Game 14 times and signed a $275 million contract with the Yankees in 2007 — then the richest deal in baseball history.
But Rodriguez’s gaudy stats were tarnished in the eyes of many by his admission in 2013 that he had used performance-enhancing drugs. He was suspended for the final weeks of that season and all of the 2014 season before rejoining the Yankees last year.
‘We all want to play forever’
Once one of the game’s most feared hitters, A-Rod slumped badly this season as his skills seemed to desert him. He is hitting .204 with just nine home runs and has spent much of the season on the bench.
“No athlete ever ends his or her career the way you want to. We all want to play forever. But it doesn’t work that way,” he said in a statement Sunday. “Accepting the end gracefully is part of being a professional athlete. Saying goodbye may be the hardest part of the job, but that’s what I’m doing today.”
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