The arbitrator hearing Alex Rodriguez's appeal of his 211-game doping suspension upheld most of the punishment on Saturday, sidelining him for 162 games, all of next season and the postseason.
The announcement, by Fredric Horowitz, Major League Baseball's chief arbitrator, means Rodriguez will not be eligible to return until the 2015 season.
The 162-game suspension is the longest in baseball history for doping. As such, it amounts to a significant victory for Bud Selig, baseball's longtime commissioner, who in recent years has tried to redefine himself as a chief executive determined to crack down on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the sport. With Selig planning to retire after the 2014 season, his legacy will now include an important milestone: a reaffirmed, and lengthy, suspension of Rodriguez, one of the best players of his generation and one of the game's top home run hitters and someone who for years managed to sidestep baseball's strong suspicions that he was using banned substances.
'The number of games sadly comes as no surprise, as the deck has been stacked against me from day one,' Rodriguez said in a statement. 'This is one man's decision, that was not put before a fair and impartial jury, does not involve me having failed a single drug test, is at odds with the facts and is inconsistent with the terms of the Joint Drug Agreement and the Basic Agreement, and relies on testimony and documents that would never have been allowed in any court in the United States because they are false and wholly unreliable.'
The suspension will cost Rodriguez, the sport's highest-paid player, all of the $25 million the Yankees were obligated to pay him for the 2014 season.
But when the suspension ends, Rodriguez will still be owed $61 million through a contract that runs through 2017. As such, Rodriguez will have an incentive to find a way to keep playing, as diminished as he may be. If he can't, he could opt for a disability retirement that guarantees his money. His future, for now, is profoundly unclear.
Rodriguez and his team of legal advisers will probably try to appeal Horowitz's decision in the courts, or to at least delay Saturday's ruling through an injunction. They could do so through a lawsuit they have already filed against both baseball and Selig, a suit that claims that Rodriguez was the target of a 'witch hunt.' Or his advisers could pursue new litigation.
However, it is unlikely that a judge would give Rodriguez much relief. Legal experts say it is unusual for a judge to second-guess an arbitrator in a labor dispute.
'They may be hoping they get an Alex Rodriguez fan, but even then, I'd be surprised if any state court judge would hear his case,' said Steven Eckhaus, an employment law expert with the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.
Posted by Unknown on Saturday, January 11, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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