Alex Rodriguez takes high road after Doug Mientkiewicz rip

Alex Rodriguez had a gleaming smile for his former high school and Yankees teammate Doug Mientkiewicz.

Rodriguez responded to Mientkiewicz saying the ex-Bronx slugger was “going to die a lonely man” in an appearance on the “Foul Territory” podcast with a calm and measured approach to Fox 5 NY’s Rosanna Scotto on Wednesday.

“There’s always going to be people out there that have things to say, everyone has an opinion, but I certainly would never talk publicly negatively about any of my teammates, especially someone from high school,” Rodriguez said.

“I mean, look, we’re almost 50 now. This is supposed to be the good old days when we look back, and we cringe about some of the weird things that we did, and we’re proud of the relationships we built over the years. So you take that with a grain of salt and you wish everyone well and you move on.”

Last week, Mientkiewicz got brutally personal when it came to the topic of Rodriguez when he joined A.J. Pierzynski and Scott Braun on the “Foul Territory” podcast.

The former Gold Glove-winning first baseman, who played with the Yankees in 2007, has been holding a grudge against Rodriguez for a multitude of things, notably for ditching friends from their days at Westminster Christian School in Palmetto Bay, Fla.

“It’s like, ‘You’re just trying to get into heaven now.’” Mientkiewicz said of Rodriguez. “I’m still friends with my high school team. We still text often, not as often as we should, but we still text, group thread, constantly badgering each other. He’s just distant from it. I don’t care how good or how great you become and how far your career goes, you never forget your high school dudes.”

In a separate interview, Rodriguez told USA Today Sports’ Mackenzie Salmon that he was “shocked and surprised” by Mientkiewicz’s words and considered the comments “strange, because I always considered Doug a friend.” 

Rodriguez, now a co-owner of the NBA’s Timberwolves, added that he was close with Mientkiewicz’s parents and would “never speak poorly about any of my teammates.”