“My Teammates Would Make Fun of Me”: MLB Icon Alex Rodriguez Unveils a Hilarious Secret Which Made Him the ‘King’

In his decades of being a celebrity, many people have been romantically linked to Alex Rodriguez. But the one never-ending love story is one that not many would expect – A-Rod and sunflower seeds. This healthy snack is popular among all baseball players alike, be it the major leagues or minor. Rarely does any game go on without a bag of salty snacks being split open.

Rodriguez is no different and enjoys chewing on it even now, years after retirement. Health experts advise a few different ways of eating the seeds to players. But the former Yankee has always followed his own rules and still recommends them!

Alex Rodriguez shows why his way is the best

Sunflower seeds have hard shells on them that need to be broken into. The method that is usually prescribed to ballplayers is to first put several seeds in their mouth, then pack them on one side between the teeth and the cheek. Then use the tongue to bring one seed at a time to the front of the mouth and crack the shell. Sounds systematic, right? What Rodriguez prescribes is chaos.

In a video with Smackin’ Sunflower Seeds, A-Rod shares the way he eats the snack. “Let me show you the way I used to try sunflower seeds when I was with the Yankees,” he says, before throwing a handful of seeds into his mouth, with no care about where they land! “All of my teammates would make fun of me…And then Cano would try to do it better than me, but he couldn’t. He can’t, I was the king.”

That’s certainly one way of eating something. So many people found the former Yankee’s method of eating funny that he was once even called a vampire because of it. Why? The way the seeds stuck at the edge of his mouth made him look just like a bloodsucker!

How did sunflower seeds and baseball come to be synonymous?

In recent years, this snack has become a popular healthy snack for everyone, not just baseballers. Rich in nutritional value, it’s truly an ideal snack. But how did it become favored by ballplayers? Popular baseball lore dictates that Reggie Jackson made them famous in the 1970s. And every young kid wanted to play like him, so they started chewing the seeds too.

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But before that, it was actually Hall of Famers Enos Slaughter and Stan Musial that used them in the 1950s. But maybe it’s because Jackson commanded more fans than them that it was he who made them more famous.

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Now it’s unimaginable to not see sunflower seeds and not think of baseball!