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CHICAGO — If any doubt lingered the Players Association objected to the length of Alex Rodriguez’s 211-game suspension, rather than the suspension itself, the union’s executive director Michael Weiner made his feelings clear on the matter Tuesday.
In an interview with Chris Russo on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Radio, Weiner said he advised Rodriguez to accept a penalty of a certain length if Bud Selig offered it.
“I don’t want to give a number, but there was a number that I gave A-Rod where we advised him to take it,” Weiner said. “He was never given that number.”
When asked about Weiner’s remarks Tuesday night, after the Yankees’ 3-2 loss to the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field, Rodriguez said, “I’m absolutely not talking about that case any longer.”
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Accepting a suspension of any length would of course be a tacit admission of guilt for Rodriguez, who is still viewed as a zero-time offender under baseball’s illegal performance-enhancing drug laws. Asked by Russo about this concept, Weiner said, “It’s a question of evidence. Each player has to make his own decision as to whether he used or not. Based on the evidence that we saw, we made a recommendation. The commissioner’s office didn’t meet it. They were much higher. And therefore we’re at a hearing.”
The appeal hearing, to be overseen by independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz, should be scheduled shortly; the next step in the process will come tomorrow when Rodriguez formally files an appeal. Rodriguez went 1-for-2 with a walk and got hit by a pitch last night in his second game back for the Yankees.
When the Miami New Times first published Biogenesis’ alleged records back in January, Rodriguez flat-out denied using illegal performance-enhancing drugs from 2009 through 2012. On Monday, however, when he held a news conference here, he danced around questions concerning MLB’s charges of “use and possession of numerous forms of prohibited performance-enhancing substances, including Testosterone and human Growth Hormone, over the course of multiple years.”
Even Rodriguez’s attorney David Cornwell, who challenged the credibility of Biogenesis founder Anthony Bosch and ex-employee Porter Fischer last week in an interview with ESPN Radio, released a more mild statement on Monday in which he asserted MLB “has gone well beyond the authority granted to it in its Joint Drug Agreement and the Basic Agreement.”
A key point of disagreement between Major League Baseball and the Players Association appears to be the notion of progressive discipline. The Joint Drug Agreement calls for a first-time offender to receive a 50-game suspension, then 100 games for the second transgression and then a lifetime ban (with the opportunity to apply for reinstatement after two years) for the third offense. The union believes a player can’t accrue multiple strikes at once — that you can’t get a second strike unless you know you already have one strike — while MLB asserts if it produces three instances of a player purchasing illegal performance-enhancing drugs, it could go for the lifetime sentence even if the player is a zero-time offender.
MLB’s suspension is more than twice as long as that of a second-time offender. Selig and his lieutenants believe they can support this with proof of both the multiple offenses of illegal PED usage and the allegation Rodriguez obstructed its investigation.
Of the latter charge, Weiner told Russo, “We argue that premise unquestionably. There is no question that a part of discipline issued by the commissioner’s office is obstruction of justice, and we will be fighting that throughout the hearing.”
The Joint Drug Agreement mandates an appeal hearing be held “as soon as practicable and, absent good cause shown, no later than 20 days after the Grievance was filed.” That would put a hearing no later than Aug. 28, and the arbitrator’s ruling is supposed to come no later than 25 days following the opening of the hearing, meaning a deadline of Sept. 22.
Nevertheless, the term “as practicable” means there’s no penalty for the appeal to take longer than 45 days to expedite. Weiner said on Monday the case might not actually be resolved until November or December. The timing of the announcement, with the end of the regular season coming Sept. 29, alleviates some urgency.
The scheduling of the hearing requires all sides — Rodriguez, his attorneys, union lawyers, Horowitz, MLB lawyers and witnesses such as Bosch — to find a date that works. The discovery process allows Rodriguez’s side to see all of MLB’s evidence and to prepare defenses for it. After the actual hearing, in which presentations are made and witnesses cross-examined — Rodriguez, as a defense witness, isn’t required to testify — both sides file briefs to summarize their cases. Finally, Horowitz will meet with one representative from MLB and one from the union, constituting the arbitration panel, and issues his finding.
It’s hard to envision that finding to be a complete exoneration of Rodriguez. Even Rodriguez and his union seem to be acknowledging that.
kdavidoff@nypost.com