Move over, Cal Ripken Jr. and Lou Gehrig. There’s a new Iron Man in Major League Baseball.
How about we call him Testifying Tony Bosch?
It’s clear already MLB intends to get its money’s worth out of Bosch, the star witness in Alex Rodriguez’s appeal of his 211-game suspension. And that Bud Selig and his lieutenants view the best offense against A-Rod to be a good defense.
And that we may very well have a World Series champion — maybe a newly elected New York City mayor, too — before this hearing concludes, let alone produces a result.
Bosch departed MLB’s headquarters at about 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, punching out for the third straight day, and he isn’t close to being finished. A source familiar with the proceedings said Bosch is still being questioned by MLB attorneys, who must prove their allegations — multiple uses of illegal performance-enhancing drugs and obstruction of the investigation — to independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz. The cross-examination by Rodriguez’s lead attorney, Joseph Tacopina, has yet to begin.
It’s Horowitz, based in Southern California, who will keep this going long enough that observers should grab themselves a Snickers bar. Horowitz came to New York with the understanding he would give the two sides Monday through Friday, and then they would schedule another window if needed. It’ll be needed. Baseball folks would at least like to be done with Bosch by Friday, but there’s no guarantee of even that occurring, since MLB can’t control the cross-examination, which Tacopina and the rest of A-Rod’s legal dream team understandably view as crucial.
Which brings us back to MLB’s methodical approach. Selig appreciates the stakes here — to his legacy; to the image of his desired successor Rob Manfred, who has led the Biogenesis investigation; and to the sport’s drug-testing program. Selig desperately doesn’t want Rodriguez to get away as Barry Bonds did, or see A-Rod exultant in legal triumph like Roger Clemens. Hence the introduction of the purported mountain of evidence Bosch supplied when he agreed to sing for MLB.
Bosch, the founder of Biogenesis, is said to have retained extensive substantiation of his alleged supplier-dealer relationship with Rodriguez that includes text messages, e-mails and reportedly eyewitness accounts of what, when and where A-Rod used. It’s essential MLB lay as strong a foundation as possible to prepare itself for the storm that will be the cross-examination. Tacopina is sure to bring up Bosch’s previous public denials of giving illegal PEDs to ballplayers as well his agreement with MLB to provide testimony.
Meanwhile, A-Rod has added another asset to his team, as attorney Michael Attanasio is on board to aid Rodriguez and the Players Association in his appeal. Attanasio, whose father Tony is a longtime baseball agent who represents the Yankees’ Ichiro Suzuki, last impacted the baseball universe when he played a huge role in exonerating Clemens from perjury and obstruction charges by the U.S. government.
“Michael Attanasio has been engaged as outside counsel to the Players Association,” Ron Berkowitz, Rodriguez’s spokesman, said in a statement. “Alex did not hire him, but welcomes his perspective and is pleased that the Players Association is taking the matter so seriously.”
It was Attanasio, smooth and cool to his fellow counsel Rusty Hardin’s colorful and fiery, who cross-examined the just-retired Andy Pettitte and induced him to back off his assertion Clemens had once admitted to using human growth hormone.
Big names on both sides, yet Bosch is the biggest for now. Whereas A-Rod departed through the building’s front entrance so he could greet his many supporters, Bosch left the premises Wednesday through a freight entrance and hopped into a black Mercedes.
Not long ago, Bosch was financially strapped and a metaphorical man without a country. Thanks to his decision to join Selig and company, he’s a VIP. And in order to earn the hearing’s MVP honors, he’s going to have to keep talking and testifying for a while longer.