A-Rod Reportedly Being Edited Out Of Children's Film 'Henry & Me'
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- There's no appealing this one.
Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez's role in "Henry & Me," an upcoming animated children's film, is going, going, gone, according to the New York Post.
In the movie, A-Rod belts a home run with an assist from the main character, Jack, a boy who is fighting cancer.
"I love Alex Rodriguez, but I love kids more, and at the end of the day, we don't want to get caught up with everything that's happening right now," executive producer Ray Negron told the Post. "This is too important a message of what we're trying to relay to kids and we don't want to get caught up with that.
"We'll need to raise more money, but it's worth it if it means getting a good product out to the kids."
Another producer of the Yankees-centric flick said that editing Rodriguez's 49 sequences will "cost a fortune."
Rodriguez is currently appealing a 211-game suspension from Major League Baseball for his alleged connection to Biogenesis, a closed Florida anti-aging clinic at the heart of the sport's latest performance-enhancing drugs scandal.
"We have investors that we have to answer to, just like the Yankees," Negron said. "If ownership decides that this is a direction that we have to go, meaning our investors, we have to listen to ownership. That's just the way it is. It works just like a team. It's the same thing."
Negron said A-Rod will "understand" that the filmmakers "have to do what we have to do."
The film is scheduled for a limited theatrical release in 2014 before going to DVD. Rodriguez is still listed as a voice actor on the "Henry & Me" IMDB.com page.
Retired fan favorite Hideki Matsui will replace A-Rod, who was brought in originally to replace Matsui, according to the Post.
Richard Gere, Luis Guzman, Chazz Palminteri, Paul Simon and Cyndi Lauper all star in "Henry & Me," according to IMDB.com. Mark Teixeira, Reggie Jackson and Yogi Berra are among the Yankees who agreed to lend their voices to the film.
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