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NEED TO KNOW
Alex Rodriguez reveals his darkest days in his new docuseries, Alex vs ARod
The former Yankees star tells PEOPLE he's in a good place now, but it took a lot of therapy to get there
Now he says he doesn't regret anything from his past, and has learned from his mistakes
AsAlex Rodriguezwatched the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays the last few weeks, he felt the desperate pull of wanting to be out on the field again.
"I'm embarrassed to tell you how much money I would have paid to be playing in Game 7," he recently told PEOPLE. But despite his absolute love of baseball, he says he also faced so much pain throughout his nearly 25-year run that there was a time he contemplated walking away from it all.
"I was so exhausted towards the end of my career, just fighting against everyone. I went away for two weeks, feeling a lot of shame, and thought, 'Why keep fighting? Why not just tap out?' That was my state of mind for a while."
Nearly a decade after hanging up his cleats, Rodriguez, 50, has a completely different mindset.
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"I don't think I've ever been happier. And I don't think that would be the case without some of the mistakes."
He's opening up about the highs and lows in the newHBO docuseriesAlex vs ARod, which came out Nov. 6.
"I thought it was important to tell my story — the good, the bad, the ugly," he says. "Because no one really knew me. And I think the most compelling part of my story is that I've fallen on my face in a very public way. Hopefully it gives others hope."
Rodriguez says his mistakes came from a deep-rooted obsession with being the best. "There might be something liketoomuch passion," he says.
Growing up in the Dominican Republic and then Miami, he developed an unparalleled perfectionism on the field, leading the Seattle Mariners to sign him at just 18 years old. Seven years later he scored a record-shattering $252 million contract to sign with the Texas Rangers, and in 2004 was traded to the New York Yankees in a blockbuster deal.
"The narrative was so negative," he says of being called greedy. Later in his career he was linked to two different steroid scandals.
"There's a wide variety of [performance-enhancing drugs]," he says. "But I never dabbled with anything crazy strong." He unsuccessfully sued the MLB and the commissioner after being banned from 211 games, and eventually returned to playing for the Yankees. Through it all, the press had a field day, calling him egotistical, covering his missteps with glee and placing a magnifying glass on his personal life.
To endure the glare, he embraced the A-Rod persona. "If I wasthatguy," he says, "I could just keep crushing it and not worry about the rest."
Now settled into a career as a popular announcer for Fox Sports and aco-owner of the Minnesota Timberwolvesand Lynx, Rodriguez wouldn't change a thing about his past.
"No regrets," he says. "I'm one of the luckiest human beings in the world. And if I can help others learn from my mistakes by owning up to them, then it's a job well done."
Read the original article onPeople
