Alex Rodriguez Goes Back To School

LITTLE JACK: …and the car smelled like throw-up the whole way home.
TEACHER: Thank you, Jack, that was very…visceral. Alex, would you like to go next? Alex…?

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In the back of the classroom, Alex is whispering to one of the kids next to him.
A-ROD: You’re like the class valedictorian, Robbie, you don’t owe this school anything… you should test the market next year, see what other middle schools are willing to pay.
TEACHER: Alex?
A-ROD: Yes, Ma’am?
TEACHER: We’re reading our What I Did This Summer reports. Would you like to go next?”
A-ROD: Sure would, ma’am! What I Did This Summer, by Alex Rodriguez.

Boos rain down on him from the rest of the class, so Alex steps back and clears his throat for a second before stepping up again.
A-ROD: Boos on the road are the same as cheers at home, you know…and, uh, vice versa. (The class settles down, confused). My summer began with a vacation in Florida, where I went to Disney World…well, not exactly Disney World but there were a lot of characters with giant heads. I saw my buddies Ryan and Francisco there, and I made sure to tell the proper authorities…but they didn’t see me. Nobody saw me. Well, maybe the woman at the front, who had suddenly developed a headache, and I had just the thing for that in the ice chest of my limo outside: a bundle of frozen hundreds! I like to put frozen bundles of hundreds against my forehead when I have headaches, so I figured she’d want to try. This is cold hard cash, I said, nothing beats that! Keep it.

From somewhere in the classroom a book flies forward and clocks Alex in the chest. He does not touch where it hit, but brushes off his hands and flips through his cards.

A-ROD: Then I got to spend a week with some family in Trenton, New Jersey, but have you seen the women in Trenton? Nobody worth a dugout note, I can tell you that. There was some trouble when we wanted a rain out and I led a bunch of my cousins out to the field at night to turn on the sprinklers. We had fun diving around on the grass like a big slip and slide. Unfortunately this sapped the water pressure of the local hydrants and a nearby orphanage burned down. I think Ryan and Francisco were there too. But I wasn’t, never mind what I said a minute ago. Nobody saw anything.

Alex squints into the distance, picks up an eraser from the blackboard behind him, whirls and fires it through an open window, across the playground outside, and smacking a camera into the face of a paparazzi lurking atop the jungle gym. The camera is knocked out of his hands and smashes to the asphalt as he falls backwards and tangles his legs in the bars.

A-ROD: I then acted in a movie being shot, in which I’m supposed to be the hero. However, my acting is so raw and powerful, it made everyone else look bad. So they decided to make it an animated movie, but still my acting was too much and now they’re cutting me from it entirely. (Now a globe lofts up towards him, but Alex shakes his head). Oh, CC! (he picks up an overhead projector next to him) I saw you throw that! Shouldn’t have lost all that weight.

(He swings the projector and smacks the globe right on its sweet spot, which is exceedingly difficult to find on an overhead projector. With a crack the globe is smashed back up over the classroom, tearing through the ceiling tiles and tearing off the head of a sprinkler. Water starts spraying down on the class, who all start screaming and racing for the door. The classroom is a soaking mess).

TEACHER: Well, Alex, don’t you think you should apologize?

Alex looks incredulous.

A-ROD: You know, ma’am, that looks like a terrific headache coming on… I’ve just got the thing for that.

Fake Sandy Alderson, tomorrow.

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About West Coast Craig 226 Articles
West Coast Craig reports from Hollywood with an endearingly laid back style. A happily married father of two little boys, WCC has an avocado tree in his yard, plays the hot corner in a "Valley" hardball league and always manages to take cool sports-related mini road-trips, often with his immediate clan. He hails from Oneonta, NY but has been "So very L.A." for twenty years, so his sports teams are the Yankees AND the Dodgers, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the L.A. Lakers and the Colorado Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques. WCC loves bacon-wrapped hotdogs and can touch his heel and his ear... with his hand.