TO put it in more entertaining terms than it actually deserves, the sheriff of MLBville will take the witness stand against the town villain on Thursday. And the sheriff is running for mayor.
Yes, the stakes will be high not only for Alex Rodriguez, who continues to appeal his 211-game suspension at Major League Baseball’s Park Avenue headquarters, but also for Rob Manfred, MLB’s COO — viewed as retiring commissioner Bud Selig’s top choice to succeed him — and who will be the star witness Thursday.
The investigation of Biogenesis, the shuttered South Florida anti-aging clinic, is Manfred’s baby. It has been a rousing success so far, with 13 players agreeing to suspensions, even though none ever failed a drug test. Yet Rodriguez fittingly stands in the way of perfection as the only player to fight his suspension, and a strong ruling in his favor by independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz — either an eradication of the entire penalty or a dramatic reduction of it — would undo a lot of the good already on the books.
It would get the fist-shaking moralists harping on the integrity of the game and the cleanliness of the record book and all of that nonsense. It would call into question the efficacy of baseball’s work to rid its game of illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
And that noise, regardless of its merit, could impact the brand of Manfred, who has made his baseball name in the difficult world of labor relations.
There’s plenty of time for the commissioner competition to fully play out. Selig has said his retirement is effective in January 2015, and these team owners, whom Selig has largely made rich and happy (and sometimes fat, too) can be a finicky bunch. Twenty-four of the 30 owners must approve of Selig’s successor. It would be hard enough to get 24 owners to agree on what to order for dinner.
So it would be an exaggeration to declare Manfred’s entire future rests on this case, of which his testimony will be a significant component. Yet there’s no disputing his candidacy can receive a large boost or take a significant hit from how this goes down.
Manfred, one of the hearing’s three panelists along with Horowitz and Players Association general counsel David Prouty, will use the game’s Basic Agreement and Joint Drug Agreement to explain why MLB suspended A-Rod for a record-setting length. And in what figures to be a blistering cross-examination, Rodriguez’s attorney, Joseph Tacopina, will ask Manfred about the alleged conduct of baseball’s investigators in South Florida; Team A-Rod detailed those allegations in the lawsuit it filed against MLB last week. The Rodriguez group also has labor experts who can challenge MLB’s interpretations.
On Wednesday, when the hearing resumed after an 11-day hiatus, MLB called upon two witnesses, neither company employees, who tried to further advance MLB’s case Rodriguez not only used multiple illegal PEDs multiple times, but also obstructed the investigation.
And of course, our saga wouldn’t be complete without mention of what was occurring outside the building. Hispanics Across America produced a group of about 50 people to cheer, sing and hold signs, many bearing ridiculous messages. Congratulations to Manfred, who got his first sign mention with an accusation he and Selig were “drug pushers.” And that was a Disney production compared to the sign that called Selig a “child killer” because of concerns MLB hasn’t done enough to keep illegal PEDs away from young Latin American players. Completely out of line.
On Thursday, HAA will hold a news conference to which it has invited State Senator Adriano Espaillat, State Senator Ruben Diaz, Assemblywoman Gabriella Rosa and City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez.
Only Diaz said he’s coming for sure.
It’s ironic: MLB started getting really tough on illegal PEDs in the mid-2000s when Congress made it a pet project. And now that MLB has what is widely recognized as the best illegal PED-prevention program in American professional sports, there are more politicians ready to chime in on the other side.
A-Rod, as always, deserves the credit. He could make a nap exciting.
And so we await Sheriff Manfred’s testimony.