Alex Rodriguez congratulates Derek Jeter on jersey retirement

Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter aren’t buddies, but A-Rod still offered a perfunctory congratulations to “The Captain.”

The last theoretically available single-digit number in New York Yankees history will be no more on Sunday, as the “No. 2” of Derek Jeter will be retired among the other legends from team lore.

Alex Rodriguez came to the Yankees in 2004, and almost immediately hinted he was a better shortstop than Jeter. Of course A-Rod had to move to third base to accommodate the Yankee captain, and out of envy, an inferiority complex or whatever else he had to knock Jeter. The two shared a left side of the infield essentially through the 2012 season, before Rodriguez started to break down physically and got suspended for a full season, but it was clearly not a friendly rivalry.

Rodriguez has stepped into a more prominent role as an analyst for FOX this season, and of course he was given a platform to (was forced to?) offer some thoughts on Jeter’s jersey retirement.

It’s a little disconcerting that Rodriguez is not really looking directly into the camera, lest his eyes show how he really feels about Jeter. His words feel incredibly scripted, or probably even written for him, like “everybody knows Yankee Stadium is the house that Derek Jeter built.” Jealousy is a fickle beast, and Rodriguez forever tainted his own legacy with performance-enhancing drug use.

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Rodriguez has shown he is an excellent baseball analyst, but he has always come off as a little too polished and not 100 percent genuine. His superiors at FOX did him no favors here, by presumably forcing him to heap praise on Jeter in video form for their social media platforms and website.