When Alex Rodriguez was blasted by Oakland A's Dallas Braden for stepping on his mound
Alex Rodriguez had quite a long career. Over 22 years playing in the MLB, he has gotten into spats with different players. There were some high-profile player feuds between Rodriguez and the others, like the one with Derek Jeter, with whom Alex Rodriguez had a tussle about who'd have the bigger contract in the business.
One of the more relatively lesser-known spats Rodriguez had was with former Oakland Athletics pitcher Dallas Braden. The spat came at a time when the enormous difference in both the caliber, accomplishments and contract sizes of the players was quite apparent. Braden, though, had no regard for that, as he went after Rodriguez following a game between the New York Yankees and the Oakland A's.
In the April 2010 matchup between the two teams, an incident occurred when Dallas Braden was pitching upto Robinson Cano. A-Rod was at first base, and he was on the base path towards second base only for Cano to be fouled. Rodriguez was on his way back to the first, and a tired A-Rod took the shortest way possible that is through the pitcher's mound.
That infuriated Braden, who proceeded to hurl random abuses at the Yankees bench after the inning was done. Braden explained his behavior in a post match interview.
“The Yankees are an extremely classy organization with guys who always tend to do the right thing every time; it’s kind of disheartening to see that not show through or be reflected by somebody of (Rodriguez’s) status,” Braden had said after the game.
He continued:
“He’s a tremendous player and a tremendous talent, and I don’t care if I’m Cy Young or the 25th man on a roster; if I’ve got the ball in my hand, and I’m out there on that mound, that’s not your mound. You want to run across the mound? Go run laps in the bullpen. That’s my mound,” Braden added.
Alex Rodriguez and teammates had no clue about Braden's behavior
When Braden had stepped up to the Yankees bench and went on his self-rant, no one understood what was happening. Alex Rodriguez and his teammates proceeded to laugh it away.
“I thought it was pretty funny, actually. He told me to get off his mound, I didn’t know what he was talking about. I thought it was kind of funny, actually. I had never quite heard that before, especially from a guy who has a handful of wins in his career,” Alex Rodriguez had said.
Dallas Braden's career, though, fizzled out after the incident. He had to take an early retirement having only played 94 Major League games. Post-retirement, he started his broadcasting career.