A good villain goes about his business like nothing’s wrong. A great villain does so by supporting the University of Miami football team.
OK, so that’s a dated cheap shot. But come on. Doesn’t it boost Alex Rodriguez’s entertainment quotient all the more that he supports the team whose rivalry with Notre Dame was once characterized as “Catholics vs. Convicts”?
The greater point is that after another long day at Major League Baseball’s Park Avenue headquarters appealing his 211-game suspension — his lead attorney Joseph Tacopina cross-examined MLB COO Rob Manfred in a predictably tense get-together, following Manfred’s direct testimony — A-Rod unwound Thursday night by joining a group of fellow Miami fans at a Brother Jimmy’s in Manhattan to watch the Hurricanes take on North Carolina.
Good for him. What, he’s supposed to hide in his apartment each night and cry? Rodriguez has perfectly played the part of a man with no worries.
As exemplified by his latest activity, Rodriguez has found more support beyond the baseball world than within it as he wages battle on three different fronts — the appeal hearing, his lawsuit against MLB and another lawsuit against Yankees team physician Chris Ahmad. Nevertheless, he should appreciate he has an ally in a baseball gentleman who is no longer with us — Marvin Miller, the first executive director of the Players Association.
“We know this is a kangaroo court up there,” Fernando Mateo, the leader of Hispanics Across America, said in a news conference outside the building Thursday afternoon. “The arbitrator is hired by Major League Baseball. Manfred is the top man at Major League Baseball. These are the people who are testifying against Alex Rodriguez.”
I’d dismiss this as utter nonsense spoken by a rabble-rouser with little regard for actual facts, except pretty much all of Mateo’s talking points have matched those thought by Team A-Rod.
It’s unusual, yet not unprecedented for Manfred, MLB’s COO and also management’s representative on the three-man panel, to actually testify. It speaks to the specific nature of the Rodriguez case, in which MLB must defend its interpretation of the game’s Basic Agreement and Joint Drug Agreement in order to justify the record-shattering penalty. Tacopina, Rodriguez’s fiery personal attorney, countered with questions about the alleged behavior of MLB’s investigative team.
The scrutiny of MLB is as healthy for the game as is baseball’s ability to nail illegal PED users even without the benefit of a positive test. It’s all good, because it’s all collectively bargained. As is the setup of the three-person panel, centered by independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz.
That’s Miller’s greatest legacy. There once was a day, and that day still exists in other major sports, when the game’s commissioner acted as judge, jury and appellate judge, too. A player had little chance for a fair hearing.
Now? The presence of Horowitz, who breaks the tie created in this case by Manfred and Players Association general counsel David Prouty, ensures A-Rod’s pleas will be heard. That’s because the union hired Horowitz in conjunction with MLB, contrary to Mateo’s assertions. And that’s a process initiated by Miller.
Mateo’s news conference welcomed three local politicians — state senators Ruben Diaz and Adriano Espaillat and Assemblywoman Gabriella Rosa. Espaillat ripped into baseball commissioner Bud Selig — “He should step down immediately. Today. Right now” — based on the extremely dubious accusation illegal PED usage is worse than ever in the game. Diaz described the 211-game suspension as “unprecedented, unfair, unjust. And I think it’s discriminatory,” although he, like the rest of us on the outside, hasn’t seen MLB’s case in person.
Lots of noise, very few facts. There’s plenty of that going every which way in this hearing. We can’t blame Rodriguez if his head is spinning. However, he should know a good thing when he has one, and this hearing setup is there to help him, No matter who gets on that witness stand.
MLB will likely wrap up its arguments Friday and turn it over to Team A-Rod, but this will mark the final day of action until November, as the two sides will break for the World Series and beyond.
One more perfect Rodriguez nugget to share: When he departed MLB offices at about 6:30 p.m., he created such a scene by signing autographs, he delayed (by about five minutes) the start of an on-site fund-raiser run by InMotion, a group that helps women with domestic violence problems. The group didn’t mind, though. Many of the autograph-seekers were folks participating in that event who wanted to meet the Yankees’ beleaguered superstar.
That’s A-Rod, the social butterfly. Maybe on Friday night, he can catch the premiere of the “Carrie” remake.