HOUSTON — Alex Rodriguez’s season on the field is over, so he will see his next action when he begins the appeal of his 211-game suspension Monday.
And he’s looking forward to it.
“I’m excited,” said Rodriguez, who did not play Saturday nor will he Sunday as the Yankees close out the season against the Astros at Minute Maid Park. “Look, this has been a big burden. Let’s get it on. It starts on Monday.”
Major League Baseball has its sights set on Rodriguez after the Biogenesis investigation, accusing him of violating the Joint Drug Agreement and the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and the two sides will face off in front of arbitrator Frederic Horowitz in Midtown one day after the Yankees’ season officially comes to a close.
“I want to face it head on,” Rodriguez said. “Better [to start it] on Monday. The one thing I didn’t want was Dec. 14. That’s not fair to the Yankees or baseball.”
Rodriguez will be in attendance at the hearing, which he said he believes will last for five days.
“I’ll be there every day,” he said. “I’m fighting for my life.”
Rodriguez declined to discuss what he intended to do during the hearing or whether he would consider reaching a settlement a victory.
“I’m not going to get into that,” Rodriguez said. “Obviously, this is going to be a grueling process all the way through.”
He promised once again he would give his side soon.
“Like I said in Trenton, you’ll hear my story ,” Rodriguez said. “I don’t want to get into the details of the case, but I can promise you’ll hear from me when all over.”
Asked what his already frosty relationship with the Yankees might be like when the hearing was over, Rodriguez said, “It is what it is.”
He didn’t seem to think it would be affected by the coming fight with the league.
“What does that have to do with the team?” Rodriguez said. “We’ll deal with it one step at a time.”
Manager Joe Girardi admitted he would keep an eye on the case’s developments.
“It will probably be hard not to follow,” Girardi said. “It affects the team, so I’m going to follow it.”
The manager, whose own status for next year is up in the air, said he believes the worst is over for Rodriguez in terms of the spotlight he has been under.
“I think this year was the brunt of it,” Girardi said. “I could be wrong.”
It’s hard to know what Rodriguez’s future is on the field, since no one is certain just how much time he will end up missing next season because of the suspension.
“This year was a big challenge,” Rodriguez said. “The biggest challenge is behind me, with no offseason training, major hip surgery, laid up in bed.”
Rodriguez is confident, however, that whenever he does get back, he’ll be able to contribute.
“When you have power, it plays,” he said. “And it plays when you’re older, too.”
Until he suffered hamstring and calf injuries in recent weeks, Rodriguez said he felt good on the field.
“I think when I was healthy, I was very, very, good,” Rodriguez said. “Then after I got banged up in Baltimore, obviously I wasn’t too good. But I thought I was driving the ball to all fields. That’s a good sign.”
Girardi agreed.
“I thought he swung the bat pretty well,” Girardi said. “Then he had those leg issues and we weren’t able to get him back on the field. I think it’s frustrating for everyone involved because he uses his lower half a lot. He did what he could to fight through it did.”
As for 2014 — or whenever Rodriguez returns — Girardi thinks he could still be productive.
“It all depends on how healthy he comes back,” Girardi said. “If he keeps his legs under him, yeah.”