Alex Rodriguez and Michael Kay did not wish to name specific dream guests for their ESPN Kay-Rod broadcasts, so we are taking it upon ourselves to do so for them.
On a conference call to promote their alternative “Sunday Night Baseball” telecasts for the upcoming season, The Post asked Kay and Rodriguez about who they would most want to have on the show.
“I like mischief,” Kay said.
“So anybody that could rile up Alex would be a dream guest. People from his past, not to name names, but I thought it was great to have Derek Jeter last year, and there was a lot of anticipation for that.
“If we could get people from Alex’s past, maybe people that he dated, not naming names, I think that would be fun.”
Since they declined to name specifics, here are some guests who would achieve the goal of peak awkwardness.
Ben Affleck
Affleck is a die-hard Red Sox fan, and could be fun guest for the rivalry with the Yankees.
This also buries the lead, that he is married to Jennifer Lopez, A-Rod’s ex-fiancée, for the second time.
Because Jeter has already gone on the program, Affleck might be the next person out there who would make their spot appointment TV.
Madonna
Madonna falls into the the list of people who A-Rod has dated in the past — at least they were rumored to have in 2008.
She has a connection to baseball, having starred in “A League of Their Own” in 1992.
Bronson Arroyo
During the 2004 ALCS between the Yankees and Red Sox, A-Rod stirred up a big controversy when he swatted the ball out of Arroyo’s glove after hitting a slow roller down the first base line.
“I thought it was a little unprofessional,” Arroyo said at the time.
For his part, A-Rod explained what he should’ve done differently.
“I knew [Arroyo] was coming. I knew the line belongs to me. Maybe looking back, I should have tried to run him over,” Rodriguez said of the incident.
Dallas Braden
Braden is another former MLB pitcher who previously beefed with A-Rod.
In a 2010 game between the Yankees and A’s, A-Rod jogged over the mound to return to first base after a foul ball went out of play.
“This is my mound, my rubber,” Braden told the slugger.
A couple weeks later, Rodriguez was not letting the controversy bother him.
“It’s tempting to sit back here and go back and forth with the media for the next three months, but I’m not going to do that,” he said at the time.
“For us to be thinking about him and Oakland is a disservice to us.”
Mike Francesa
Now we have to turn the tables and create some “mischief” for Kay.
Francesa and Kay competed against each other in afternoon drive, for WFAN and ESPN New York respectively, for years.
Things grew especially fractious when Kay’s simulcast replaced Francesa’s on YES Network, and Kay celebrated the occasion by throwing a Diet Coke — known forever as Francesa’s beverage of choice — in the trash can.
From then on, there was not just competition for ratings on the airwaves, but a war of words that would endure for a long time.
A-Rod also has a history with Francesa, having infamously done an interview with the radio legend on WFAN in 2013 in which he denied steroid use and called former MLB commissioner Bud Selig the “man from Milwaukee.”
KayRod airs eight times throughout the 2023 MLB season, at 7 p.m. Eastern on ESPN2. The first edition comes on April 2 when the Phillies play at the Rangers.
