The riveting HBO Max docuseries Alex vs. A-Rod is as much about childhood trauma as it is about baseball. It explores the various manifestations of pain, such as how the pain of abandonment in childhood can sabotage one as an adult and how much work it takes to heal.
This expertly edited docuseries about legendary Yankees baseball player Alex Rodriguez lets viewers “read between the lines” as to professional baseball’s hypocrisy at times and Rodriguez’s personal life. Alex vs. A-Rod also has some priceless bits of comic relief.
Compartmentalizing Emotional Pain
“It’s more of a mental health story than a baseball story,” Rodriguez said on The Today Show on November 6, 2025, the day Alex vs. ARod first aired.
Children depend on adults for their survival. When a parent is abusive or neglectful, children often compartmentalize the emotional abandonment, dissociate from it, to be able to carry on. Not processing this pain can lead to stunted emotional growth or addiction later on.
What this docuseries did so well is take us through Rodriguez’s arduous journey processing the childhood pain from being abandoned by his father and how hard it was for him to let go of the lie he told himself about the abandonment. Without working through this unprocessed pain, he would not have been able to address the emotional toll it had taken on his personal life. He also would not have been able to mature into a fully present adult and leave his selfish and borderline reckless behind.
Physical Pain
Professional sports take a tremendous toll on the body. Pain and injuries impair performance as does aging. “An average runner slows a little more than 1 inch per second every year, beginning pretty much immediately upon his debut,” ESPN.com re how aging affects the speed of baseball players. Careers usually end around 38. Most professional athletes want to keep competing at their highest level as long as they can and will go to great lengths to achieve that.
Like many other professional athletes, Rodriguez’s injuries started to pile up by his mid-thirties, cause excruciating pain, and periodically take him out of the game.
Alex vs. A-Rod should have addressed why Rodriguez risked extreme penalties and potentially the end of his career by going black market to obtain steroids instead of seeking medical expertise to obtain prescription steroids. Steroids do have medicinal uses. And steroids can influence emotions and behavior.
A-Rod
Losing oneself into a celebrity persona can stunt emotional growth and give one a false sense of invincibility. Becoming A-Rod gave Alex Rodriguez an alternate identity that absolved him of a certain amount of moral responsibility. Alex vs. A-Rod did an excellent job of weaving together footage, interviews with Rodriguez, and interviews with family, friends, baseball players, and management.
Comic Relief
Bits of humor broke up the heavy subject matter, such as a clip of Derek Jeter’s hilarious spontaneous answer to a reporter asking him about the status of his once close friendship with Rodriguez. And, I still laugh every time I picture the clip of Rodriguez, in the middle of playing a professional baseball game, pointing to his childhood friends in the stands and chastise them for not wearing suits to Yankee Stadium. Suits to Yankee Stadium, are you kidding me!