For a guy who isn’t even playing in spring training, Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez has been in the news a lot leading up to the 2013 season.

Just a few days ago, news broke about the shadiness of his “charity,” the A-Rod Family Foundation.  Plus, he has had a ton of negative attention not only this off-season, but throughout his entire career.

However, the creators of a Yankees kids movie titled “Henry & Me” decided that A-Rod could be portrayed in a positive light despite the negative publicity.

A shot from the animated movie “Henry & Me” shows A-Rod as a cartoon character. PHOTO COURTESY: NY POST

The animated film will be a tribute film to the history of the Yankees that is meant to celebrate their history.  Owners Hal and Hank Steinbrenner are both fine with A-Rod’s role in the film and told the New York Post on Wednesday:

“I think it doesn’t matter,” Hank Steinbrenner said to The Post. “The movie is about a child with cancer and his love of the Yankees. Everybody else is in it, too, Ruth and Gehrig and everybody else, so it’s really a small part of it.  The focus really needs to be on what the movie is about. It’s really sad at the beginning and luckily a happy ending. It’s not about whether Alex is in it or not. Maybe it is to the baseball press, but it’s not going to be to anybody else”

Hank, who does the voice for his late father George in the film, makes a good point that Rodriguez should not be the focus of the movie.  As executive director of the film Ray Negron put it, “This is my tribute to The Boss and the Steinbrenner family and (team president) Randy Levine for all the things they’ve done for me.”

The movie will have a star studded cast doing voice-overs of Yankee legends.  Richard Gere does the voice of Lou Gehrig while Chazz Palminteri plays Babe Ruth.  The film will feature Yankees greats such as Yogi Berra, Reggie Jackson and Bob Sheppard and current Bombers such as CC Sabathia and Joe Girardi.  All of them will be the voices of their characters in the movie.

A-Rod will also play himself and had two recording sessions with the producers in 2009.  Because of the success Rodriguez had during that season (despite admitting to past PED use before the season), the Steinbrenners felt it was okay for him to be portrayed in such a positive light.

Rodriguez’s part is said to be small but important to the film.  Being aided by the movie’s main character Jack, Rodriguez hits a big home run that brings the movie together.  Unfortunately for the Yankees, it does not look like A-Rod will be hitting many homeruns this year.

And unfortunately for A-Rod, there is not a whole lot of positive attention coming his way, even with this movie expecting to be released sometime in June of this year.

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