Longtime New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez made a tongue and cheek comment about the rival Boston Red Sox after the team traded Rafael Devers ahead of the 2025 MLB All Star game
21:01 ET, 15 Jul 2025Updated 21:01 ET, 15 Jul 2025
Alex Rodriguez (L) is on the FOX MLB team alongside David Ortiz (M) and Derek Jeter (R)(Image: Getty Images)
Ahead of the 2025 MLB All-Star Game, FOX analyst and longtime New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez made a telling admission: “It’s great for baseball when the Boston Red Sox are good.”
Rodriguez almost joined Boston ahead of the 2004 season but was instead traded to New York, winning two MVPs and a World Series along the way. He was part of the famous 2004 ALCS between the Yankees and Red Sox when Boston dramatically overcame a 3-0 series lead to win the American League pennant.
The 2025 Red Sox started off middling before surprising many by trading longtime star Rafael Devers to the San Francisco Giants in an effort, according to their front office, to improve the team’s “clubhouse culture.”
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Ahead of the All-Star break, Boston has rattled off 10 straight wins for the first time since 2018 to climb within a game of the New York Yankees (who started the year hot) in the standings.
“Bottom line boys, if we zoom out, it’s great for baseball when the Boston (I can’t believe I’m saying this), when the Boston Red Sox are good,” Rodriguez told his former Yankees teammate Derek Jeter and longtime Red Sox star David Ortiz on the FOX pregame.
“And right now they’re playing great. Sometimes, when you clear a clubhouse of whatever perceived energy. I remember when [Ken] Griffey left us in Seattle, we got better.”
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“And then when I left us a year later, we got even better. Sometimes you need the big brother to get out for all of the other big brothers can excel and thrive and they’re doing that in a beautiful way.”
Coming off a down year in 1999, the Seattle Mariners traded star Ken Griffey Jr to his hometown Cincinnati Reds for a disappointing trade package.
The team rebounded to make the playoffs in 2000, but Rodriguez left the team that drafted him first overall for the richest contract in MLB history with the last-place Texas Rangers (10 years, $250 million).
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Buoyed by the offseason signing of Ichiro Suzuki from Japan, the 2001 Mariners set the single-season MLB wins mark with a staggering 116-46 record.
How did this happen? Ichiro won both the 2001 American League Rookie of the Year and MVP award, new acquisition Bret Boone posted a career-best 8.8 WAR, and starter Freddy Garcia blossomed into an ace.