ST. LOUIS — With the ethics of his investigators under attack by Alex Rodriguez and his attorneys, commissioner Bud Selig defended the methodology that led Major League Baseball to suspend A-Rod for 211 games.
“I’m very comfortable with that,” Selig said Saturday at Busch Stadium, after giving the Roberto Clemente Award to former Met Carlos Beltran of the Cardinals. “Look, I’m not a lawyer in that area. I’m not a lawyer altogether. But our people, and I know it’s now been written over and over again, I’m very comfortable with what they did and how they did it.
“I’ve been in baseball now 50 years. I thought I had seen everything, but apparently I hadn’t.”
Rodriguez’s appeal against Major League Baseball, currently on hiatus until Nov. 18, has grown acrimonious. Since the hearing began on Sept. 30, Rodriguez has filed two lawsuits, one against Selig and MLB and a second against Yankees team physician Christopher Ahmad and his hospital, New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center.
In the suit against MLB and Selig, Rodriguez accuses baseball of conducting a “witch hunt” against him and alleges myriad episodes of misbehavior by MLB’s Department of Investigations. Baseball issued a statement on Oct. 4, the same day the suit was filed, denying all of the allegations.
On Oct. 18, The Post reported exclusively that MLB COO Rob Manfred testified in the hearing he authorized the payment of $125,000 in cash to a Florida man named Gary Jones in return for Biogenesis documents that turned out to be stolen.
Manfred and Rodriguez’s lead attorney Joseph Tacopina have exchanged insults and accusations. Selig, while professing his desire to stay above the fray, did tell a small group of reporters, “I’m sorry for what you all have to listen to every day.”
Later, while discussing the overall state of the game, Selig said, “The situation in New York is not one you dream about.”
The nightmare figures to last until about Christmas, when independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz is expected to render his decision.