So said Yankee GM Brian Cashman, a careful man so practiced in studied speech that this must rank as a wild exclamation. The Yankees, Major League Baseball, and the team’s one-time superstar multimillionaire third baseman Alex Rodriquez have found themselves embroiled in a controversy so complex that it is difficult to find someone to root for.
To begin, Rodriguez has been one of the greatest players of his generation, a prodigious hitter and splendid fielder who has been a All Star twelve times and won three Most Valuable Player awards. He is, however, 38 years old, has suffered debilitating hip injuries, and after this season will still have four years left on a contract which will earn him about $100 million. This is a paltry sum for abig boppin’ All-Star, but it’s a crippling waste of money for a guy on the DL.
A-Rod, moreover, is a cheater. In February 2009, surrounded by supportive Yankee teammates, A-Rod admitted that he used steroids in 2001 and 2003, while a member of the Texas Rangers. This always had the odor of untruth about it, it being one of those `But it was in another country, and besides, the wench is dead’ admissions where the crime that is being acknowledged happened so long ago and so far away and on top of that, so far outside the sanctity of the Yankee uniform, that we should all forget about it. And most of us—especially when he slugged his way through the 2009 post-season—did just that.
But then there were stories about Alex going to Berlin to get treatment for his hip. And then visiting a clinic that’s located in a strip mall in Florida. So when baseball investigated and hit A-Rod with a 211 game suspension last month, most people thought that he must have done something to deserve it—even though Rodriguez never failed a test, which happen to yield false positives anyway.
The Yankees were probably happy. A-Rod has been a pain-in-the-ass lightning rod during his entire tenure, and a 211 game suspension saves the Yankees maybe $36 million for a guy who wasn’t having an off year, who wasn’t over the hill, but who was contributing nothing.
But A-Rod doesn’t think he deserves a 211 game suspension; he says he deserves no suspension at all, and has appealed MLB’s decision. And indeed, MLB’s decision does seem awfully arbitrary. Other players who’ve been suspended for using PEDs have been hit with far shorter suspensions, even ones who, like A-Rod, have been accused of trying to undermine or elude MLB’s investigations. Even before the suspension was announced, baseball could be observed mulling the length of sentence, as though they were trying to triangulate a number that was strict, fair, and has good PR spin. To no one’s surprise, A-Rod has appealed the verdict.
And why not? The number seems arbitrary. The proof has not been disclosed. The penalty will cost him millions, and might, moreover, be an effective lifetime ban, since there is no telling how well he might perform when he comes back in 2014, just short of 40 years old. His goals of reaching of reaching 700 homers (he now has 649), 2000 RBIs (1956) and 3000 hits (2917), which once seemed automatic, not seem very distant, and fading.
A-Rod has not only appealed; he’s come out punching, accusing the Yankee organization of mistreating his injuries and colluding with MLB to ban him so that the Yanks can save money. These allegations fall between “Unlikely’’ and “Who knows?’’, but the real promise is that during the course of such a lawsuit, so much dirty linen will be aired that no one will emerge clean. All the more reason for the arbitrator, whenever he finally hears the case, to issue a Solomonic ruling that still punishes Rodriguez, but shortens his stretch enough that he concludes that his best interests lie in just doing the time. Eighty games? A hundred?
Meanwhile, he continues to play, and productively. After 14 games, he is hitting .296, with 2 homers and 6 RBIs , a pace that would have given him 23 homers and 69 RBIs over a full season (which he will never again play.) His return to the line-up has been cheered by fans, and his presence, along with contributions from the returning Eduardo Nunez and Curtis Granderson and new arrivals like Alfonso Soriano, has brought the Yanks back into the playoff chase. Last Sunday, Red Sox pitcher Ryan Dempster deliberately hit Rodriguez with a pitch, his way of expressing his view that A-Rod shouldn’t be playing. Dempster was suspended five games and fined $2500; as one Boston Globe writer put it, it was MLB’s way of winking and shaking his hand. Yankee manager Joe Girardi was fines twice that sum for protesting.
Who knows? Dempster’s action seems to have invigorated the Yanks, who won the game behind an A-Rod performance where he homered and went 2 for 4, with 2 ribbies and 2 runs scored. Who knows? By the time this is over, A-Rod may lead a team he is suing all the way to a World Series title, and receive a World Series MVP award from a commissioner who has tried to end his career. After which time, he may begin a lengthy suspension. Unique times, indeed.