A-Rod is about to become the voice of baseball just 3 years after being the sport’s biggest pariah

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• Alex Rodriguez has reportedly agreed to a deal with ESPN to become a commentator for their flagship MLB program, “Sunday Night Baseball.”
• Rodriguez will continue to work as an analyst for Fox Sports during the MLB playoffs.
• The move is the latest in the incredible reformation of A-Rod’s image.
• We are only three years removed from when Rodriguez was one of the biggest pariahs in the history of the sport.

Alex Rodriguez appears to be all the way back in the good graces of the baseball world.

Rodriguez has agreed to a deal with ESPN that would make him possibly the biggest voice of the sport as a commentator on the network’s flagship baseball broadcast, “Sunday Night Baseball.”

Michael McCarthy of the Sporting News first reported the agreement.

The deal will also allow Rodriguez to continue his work with Fox Sports as a baseball analyst during their postseason coverage of Major League Baseball.

Most who have seen Rodriguez’s work as a baseball analyst have been highly complimentary of his abilities in front of the camera, so, on talent alone, the move is not a surprise. What is surprising is just how quickly A-Rod’s return to the top of the baseball world has been.

USA Today Sports/Reuters

Just five years ago, then MLB Commissioner Bud Selig was reportedly contemplating a lifetime ban for A-Rod over his links to steroids and the Biogenesis scandal.

Rodriguez was given a three-day window to accept a suspension or be barred for life.

He was later suspended 211 games and was said to be spending “hundreds of thousands of dollars a month” fighting MLB.

The suspension was later reduced to the entirety of the 2014 season by an arbitrator, but A-Rod vowed to fight the suspension in court.

Just three years ago, Rodriguez returned to baseball as a player with diminished abilities, a tarnished past as the new face of steroids, and a contract that was still too big for the New York Yankees to just throw away. He was MLB’s persona non grata.

But when Rodriguez did return, he appeared to be humbled and less combative. He eventually retired near the end of the 2016 season and walked away gracefully. He also started up a highly publicized relationship with Jennifer Lopez and surprised a lot of people with his likability and charm as an analyst on Fox.

Now he is back on top.