Major League Baseball is playing hardball with Alex Rodriguez’s former public relations honcho, filing legal papers Wednesday demanding he be held in contempt of court for refusing a judge’s order to testify in arbitration during A-Rod’s appeal of his 211-game doping suspension.
PR maven Michael Sitrick has opted to appeal Manhattan federal Judge Edgardo Ramos’ Nov. 22 order to honor an MLB subpoena to appear before the independent arbitrator who will determine the ban and also turn over documents MLB believes Rodriguez took from Anthony Bosch, owner of the now-shuttered Florida anti-aging clinic Biogenesis and baseball’s star witness in the appeal hearing.
The decision to appeal is not sitting well with Commissioner Bud Selig and the league. Sitrick’s testimony would help MLB prove Rodriguez obstructed the Biogenesis investigation.
If Sitrick gets out of testifying, it would be increasingly difficult for the arbitrator to uphold the full suspension.
“Mr. Sitrick’s decision not to comply with the court’s order and, instead, to file an appeal [with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals] and seek a stay, has left MLB but with no choice but to request that Mr. Sitrick be held in contempt of court and required to pay a daily fine in an amount sufficient to cause him to comply,” MLB lawyer Howard Ganz wrote. “If Mr. Sitrick’s compliance … is not immediately secured, he will have succeeded in circumventing and/or rendering that order moot.”
Ganz said there is “considerable urgency” in getting Sitrick’s testimony immediately because there is “extraordinary limited” time for MLB to apply to the arbitration panel to reopen the now-closed hearing process and take Sitrick’s testimony.
He said MLB and its Players Association are required to submit reply briefs to the panel by Dec. 21, and once the panel issues its ruling, “there will be no further opportunity to submit evidence.”
“If Mr. Sitrick does not comply with the subpoena immediately, he will preclude MLB from obtaining relevant evidence — likely to be adverse to Mr. Rodriguez — in the arbitration proceeding,” Ganz said. “This delay, we believe, is a calculated strategy designed to advance Mr. Rodriguez’s efforts to accomplish that result.”
Sitrick claimed since he lives in Los Angeles and primarily works out of Irvine, Calif., he shouldn’t have to comply with a subpoena served thousands of miles away at his satellite office in Times Square — and on a day he wasn’t around to take it.
But Ramos ruled Sitrick “was served” because he can’t argue the Times Square location isn’t his place of business, adding “it doesn’t matter that [Sitrick] wasn’t in the state.”
MLB lawyers have said they would have been satisfied if Sitrick complied with their initial request to sign an affidavit swearing neither he nor any of his staffers leaked selected portions of Biogenesis documents to the media outing other players, such as Brewers star Ryan Braun and the Yankees’ Francisco Cervelli, for using performance-enhancing drugs. That offer is no longer on the table.
Yahoo! Sports broke the story of Braun’s and Cervelli’s connection to Biogenesis.
Sitrick’s lawyer, John Briody, did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
He has previously argued the subpoena should be quashed because individuals, by law, shouldn’t be required to travel more than 100 miles from where they live or work to testify.
Sitrick has claimed in legal papers he never leaked the documents, but never responded to questions about whether his staffers did.
Rodriguez also has denied leaking Biogenesis documents and said he reached out to his teammate Cervelli to personally discuss the allegations.
Additional reporting by Ken Davidoff