Shaun Morash organized A-Rod Day on Evan and Tiki on Friday, commemorating the 20-year anniversary of Alex Rodriguez being traded to the Yankees.
And Morash started with a bang, declaring that Derek Jeter should have conceded shortstop to Rodriguez when he was brought to the Bronx on this day in 2004.
“Jeter should have made that decision on his own,” Morash said. “He wasn’t the better shortstop.”
Citing audio from the ESPN documentary series “The Captain,” Morash went back to a night in Chicago when Jeter and Rodriguez sat alone during a rain delay and tried to hash out their difference, which, according to Rodriguez, included Jeter wondering what the new Yankee’s “agenda” was to come to New York and, without question, move to third base despite being one of the best shortstops in the game.
For Morash, it represented Rodriguez’s selflessness, and perhaps even a little selfishness from the Yankee captain.
“Rather than run scared and be hidden from the awkwardness, a man of all men, Alex Rodriguez, stared The Captain in the eye and said, ‘What’s the problem here?’” Morash said. “It’s very easy for us as Yankee fans - and I’m one of them - that love Derek Jeter. I don’t understand how we can look at Derek Jeter, despite all the rings, and say he was the better shortstop than A-Rod. News flash, he wasn’t. Alex Rodriguez was the shortstop in Major League Baseball.
“Derek, you’re supposed to be the king of winning…Derek Jeter, I think proved in 2004 that his main agenda wasn’t always about winning the way A-Rod’s agenda was. And yet, we don’t look at it that way.”
Evan countered that Rodriguez not coming over and taking the beloved Jeter’s position actually helped Rodriguez avoid even more scrutiny and pressure, but Morash says it was an example of Jeter not fulfilling his captaincy duties to the max, and Rodriguez took the high road.
And that should be celebrated, hence A-Rod Day.
“Derek Jeter, in that clip you heard, said ‘I don’t know that I could have done like A-Rod did,’ and he sat like a sulking freaking baby, on a rainy bench after slumping through April, rather than embracing the fact that he was gonna be playing with one of the game’s greatest players next to him, a guy brought to help him win another championship,” Morash said. “Alex could do that because he understood, at that point in his career, it was about getting out of Texas and finding a place to win. And Derek Jeter, who was all about winning, couldn’t understand why someone could do that? Yet we sit here, in 2024, questioning A-Rod’s will to win?”