A day without an A-Rod bombshell is like a banana split without whipped cream. It leaves you unfulfilled.
So when no big news hit the public domain on Tuesday, we were left to take a breath and reassess where everything stood in the matter of Alex Rodriguez v. The World.
Let’s catch up on some of the big storylines and offer some additional observations.
1. A-Rod’s latest lawsuit
On Monday, he filed suit against Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association in the hopes of vacating the 162-game suspension he received Saturday from independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz for his involvement with Biogenesis, the shuttered South Florida anti-aging clinic.
The defendants have 21 days from the suit filing to file a response, so MLB and the union both face a Feb. 3 deadline.
We have heard repeatedly Rodriguez has no chance to prevail in this matter. On Monday, I heard the most dumb-guy-friendly explanation yet for this. Thanks to Matt Adler, chair of the International Litigation and Arbitration group with the law firm Pepper Hamilton.
Adler read Team A-Rod’s lawsuit, and he noted paragraph 103, which reads: “Arbitrator Horowitz demonstrated a manifest disregard for the law by admitting into the arbitration record and relying upon unreliable evidence, wholly unauthenticated documents, and hearsay testimony.”
In a telephone interview Tuesday, Adler responded to that assertion: “You’re allowed to do that in arbitration. When you sign a contract that creates the jurisdiction of the arbitrator, the technical evidentiary rules of a federal court do not apply. Therefore, to base your appeal on the violation of those rules makes no sense.”
This would be the equivalent, Adler said, “of grafting soccer rules onto football.”
During the arbitration hearing, Team A-Rod repeatedly lamented it would be dominating in a federal-court hearing. Unfortunately for Team A-Rod, it can’t magically transform its case away from arbitration.
2. Horowitz’s ruling
Admittedly, when I read Horowitz’s write-up on Monday — generously provided by Team A-Rod, as an exhibit in its lawsuit — I was taken aback by how strongly Horowitz rebuked Team A-Rod and the Players Association and validated MLB. I wondered whether the severity of the language actually could help Team A-Rod affirm its argument that Horowitz carried a bias. Then again, I had never read one of these before.
It turns out, based on conversations I had Tuesday, my reaction fully reflected my inexperience. While not all rulings are so definitive, it isn’t uncommon, either.
Furthermore, one attorney with experience in MLB pointed out Horowitz wrote up his explanation in such a way that it comes off as a preemptive strike against subsequent litigation. Horowitz goes into vast detail about the genesis of his reduction from 211 games to 162 games plus the postseason.
3. A-lone
It’s worth noting, as he seems determined to leave himself friendless in the baseball world, Rodriguez is extremely untethered from the industry. His baseball agent, Dan Lozano, has not been at all involved with Rodriguez’s Biogenesis battle. When Rodriguez had a conference call with the Yankees during the arguments about his health last summer, A-Rod used attorney Jordan Siev as his counsel.
He has plenty of legal representation, have no doubt. One independent attorney, taking note of the nine Rodriguez attorneys identified on Horowitz’s report, offered the ballpark guess that A-Rod has paid $5,000 per hour for legal representation.
The non-baseball attorneys are simply doing their jobs. It’s not necessarily their concern whether Rodriguez alienates everyone else associated with MLB. But Rodriguez really could use someone in baseball to offer a different take. Lozano didn’t return a call on Tuesday.
4. The spring thing
The feeling down in Tampa is Rodriguez ultimately will not report to spring training. Team A-Rod insists he will be there.
“He’s going to train to come back, whether that’s in April 2014 or April 2015,” Rodriguez’s attorney Joseph Tacopina told me on Monday.
There have been suggestions that because Rodriguez isn’t on the Yankees’ 40-man roster as a suspended player, he will be relegated to the minor-league complex. The Players Association, despite being the latest Rodriguez target, will nevertheless work to protect the sanctity of the collective bargaining agreement, which is hilariously vague on this issue. Precedent has been that players who were beginning the season on a suspension for illegal performance-enhancing drug usage — think the Mets’ Guillermo Mota in 2007 and Oakland’s Bartolo Colon and San Diego’s Yasmani Grandal last year — showed up in major-league camp. However, none faced a season-long ban.
The Yankees’ ticket sales are down in spring training, just like the regular season; they have increased their billboard presence in Tampa to push their Grapefruit League contests. We all know that, if Rodriguez actually played in a game, Steinbrenner Field would sell out.
So come on. Make this happen, Yankees. It will be better March Madness than the college basketball tournament.