Ah, the sweet sounds of regular season baseball.
After a 99-day lockout and shortened spring training, MLB games are finally back in our lives. The pop of the catcher’s mitt, the crack of the bat, the awkward silence of Alex Rodriguez after being thoroughly embarrassed on live television. All of it on glorious display Sunday night.
Attempting to capitalize on the success of the ManningCast, ESPN has, for reasons passing understanding, put together a secondary Sunday Night Baseball broadcast of Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez. They debuted during Sunday’s Red Sox-Yankees game (of course) and only a day after Rodriguez’s ex-fiancé Jennifer Lopez announced her engagement to Ben Affleck—a fact that Kay not-so-subtly worked into his commentary.
Michael Kay fooling around with A-Rod, by subliminally brining up JLo. #Yankees pic.twitter.com/vQ0ROed5xQ
— Aaron (@Aaron_Lafond) April 11, 2022
Notice how A-Rod is nodding along, half-listening to his colleague until he processes just what Kay was saying there at the end and gives a forced laugh. He could not be more ready to move the conversation back to the game.
For those just getting caught up here:
A-Rod and J-Lo were engaged for two years from 2019-2021. They broke up last April, which led to a reunion between Lopez and Affleck—who previously dated from 2002-2004 and were engaged to wed before calling things off.
what i like about bennifer is they didn’t get caught up in the dramatics of “it just wasn’t meant to be” and instead were like “let’s table this for now, pursue other projects and circle back in 20 years”
— Alex McDaniel (@AlexMcDaniel) April 9, 2022
Nearly two decades later, Bennifer is back and better than ever. It just happened to come at the expense of Alex Rodriguez, who now has to chuckle his way through jokes about a former partner.
Oh, and the Red Sox won, 4-3, on Sunday. A tough night all around for the former Yankee.