Legendary Major League Baseball slugger Alex Rodriguez (A-Rod) said he was “shocked and surprised” by personal attacks from former high school and New York Yankees teammate Doug Minkiewicz.

“I always considered him a friend, so I thought the comments were weird,” A-Rod said, according to CBS Sports, USA Today, and others on Monday.

Minkiewicz, who played baseball, basketball and football with Rodriguez at Westminster Christian High School in Miami and spent the 2007 season with the New York Yankees, said last week on “Foul Territory,” a podcast hosted by former MLB catcher A.J. Pierzynski, journalist Scott Brown and others, that “A-Rod is distancing himself from his high school teammates” and that he will “die a lonely man. Sniping that he doesn’t consider the people he lived with as friends.메이저사이트

Minkiewicz responded, “I’m still friends with my high school teammates. We don’t talk as often, but we still text each other and constantly harass each other in group chat rooms. It’s just that the distance has grown. No matter how good you get, how great you become, or how far you go in your career, you’ll never forget your high school friends.”

He also took jabs at A-Rod’s parenting skills and his repeated history of banned substance use.

Minkiewicz played left-handed first base during his career. He made his debut with the Minnesota Twins in 1998. He helped the Boston Red Sox win the World Series, breaking the Bambino Curse after 86 years. He played for the New York Mets, Kansas City Royals, New York Yankees, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Los Angeles Dodgers before retiring in 2009.

In response to Minkajic’s comments, Rodriguez said he was close to his parents and “you’ll never hear me say anything bad about my teammates.” He concluded his comments on the subject by saying, “I wish him well.”