A strange thing has happened the past few years. There was a time when it became clear there would probably never be a more polarizing athlete than Alex Rodriguez, even before he became a PED poster boy/punching bag.
Back when he was just a great player who often seemed to struggle in the bigger moments of a season, he became one of the most remarkable lightning rods ever, something I, with this job, was able to gauge as closely and as carefully as anyone.
Usually it went like this:
Write a “positive” A-Rod column, and you could expect dozens (more, depending on the time of year) of emails (and, later, tweets) wondering (sometimes kindly, sometimes less so) whether you’d lost your mind, how could you possibly say such nice things about this choker (and, later, cheater), you should have your column license revoked and, maybe, spend a night or two in jail.