Sunday night a thief smashed into baseball legend Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez’s rental vehicle in San Francisco, making off with an estimated half-million dollars worth of jewelry and electronics, sources familiar with the investigation told The Chronicle.
Rodriguez was in town broadcasting the Giants-Phillies game for ESPN and he left his car on the 400 block of Brannan Street, about three blocks from Oracle Park, sources said.
Sometime between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m., someone broke into a vehicle in that location and stole a camera, a laptop, miscellaneous jewelry and a bag, said Officer Adam Lobsinger, a San Francisco police spokesman. Lobsinger said the burglary involved a private citizen and it’s against department policy to release victim information.
But numerous sources told The Chronicle the victim was Rodriguez, 44, and the thieves pilfered roughly $500,000 worth of goods. The department has made the report confidential, meaning it cannot be accessed by members of the force who are not involved in the investigation.
A source told The Chronicle that ESPN had rented a black Nissan sport utility vehicle for Rodriguez and other members of the production staff. The thieves struck while Rodriguez and the other staff members were having dinner at upscale restaurant Marlowe after the broadcast.
Teams of burglary investigators were collecting evidence from the vehicle overnight and the department has made the case a high priority, sources said. This is the second time a Yankees affiliated personnel has had a run-in with police in the recent news. Yankees GM Brian Cashman was stopped by police for being the suspected culprit behind his stolen vehicle, since it was not updated in the system that the vehicle was returned.
