Ken Davidoff

Ken Davidoff

MLB

A-Rod and MLB can both be wrong

DETROIT — Good morning from Comerica Park. Let’s start by catching up on Pop Quiz questions.

1) From Queens native and Israel resident David Schor: In two 1962 editions of the comic strip “Peanuts,” Charlie Brown laments that a future Hall of Famer didn’t hit a ball three or even two feet higher. Name the player and the famous at-bat Charlie Brown is referencing.

2) From Andy Romanic of Freeport: Name the producer of “The Ball Game,” an 1898 film that featured footage of a game between the Reading Phillies and Newark Bears.

I didn’t post in the morning last week because I was working a banker’s hours at Major League Baseball’s Manhattan headquarters. Covering Alex Rodriguez’s appeal against MLB has been fascinating, and it figures to remain so.

(Of course, I don’t mind much that arbitrator Fredric Horowitz’s busy schedule gives us a week off from the hearing. It’s nice to mix it up with some ballgames.)

I’m not in the hearing room, so I can’t say precisely how it’s going so far — besides “slowly,” as Tony Bosch dominated Week 1. Both sides are professing confidence, but it’s all up to Horowitz. It’s not like reading a jury.

Of course, the A-Rod story doesn’t concern only the hearing. There’s also the accompanying noise — Hispanics Across American sure expanded awareness of its brand awareness — and the additional litigation, as word broke Friday of A-Rod’s dual lawsuits against MLB (and Bud Selig) and Yankees team doctor Chris Ahmad (and his hospital).

After a weekend’s rest and contemplation, the thought that most stands out to me is how both sides — A-Rod and MLB — are working so hard to dismiss the other’s take.

A-Rod: “Forget about whether I used illegal PEDs. Look at the way their investigators and attorneys behaved!”

MLB: “Who cares about how our investigators and attorneys behaved? He’s just trying to distract you from the fact that he used illegal PEDs!”

The truth is exactly in the middle. Both sides underestimate us. We can handle it all. We can walk and chew gum at the same time.

We can appreciate A-Rod quite possibly (to be polite) broke baseball laws and also can wonder how aggressively MLB should be pursuing folks such as A-Rod.

There are no good guys or bad guys here. At worst, A-Rod violated his industry’s rules and will face a punishment. At best, MLB worked to uphold its rules in order to placate its customers and employees. Nothing from this directly affects the lives of anyone who doesn’t draw a paycheck from MLB.

As for what these lawsuits by A-Rod mean, well, he’s been threatening them for a while, though they make him vulnerable concerning past medical issues (like his infamous interactions with Canadian doctor Anthony Galea) and whatever other skeletons exist in his vast closet.

But that’s assuming these suits ever get to a courtroom. We naturally wonder whether A-Rod’s true agenda was to use these suits to push for a settlement of his suspension. If Team A-Rod can survive a motion to dismiss, which MLB surely will file, then Team A-Rod would seek to depose Selig and other MLB officials. And the discovery phase could open some doors that MLB doesn’t want opened — a full accounting of the investigators’ behavior, for one thing.

So is there a deal to be made here? Cut the suspension to 100 games in return for dropping the lawsuits?

At this juncture, I think the two sides hate each other so much that the most likely scenario is the appeal hearing goes the distance and A-Rod tries to push these two lawsuits all the way into court. Yet we don’t rule out any resolution, not with these particular parties. And we keep an eye on every aspect of it, because we can mentally multi-task.

Your Pop Quiz answers:

1) Willie McCovey’s lineout to Bobby Richardson to end the 1962 World Series between the Giants and Yankees.

2) Thomas Edison.