Commentary on the economic , geopolitical and simply fascinating things going on. Served occasionally with a side of snark.
Friday, August 2, 2013
Alex Rodriquez bluff-a-thon continues - Hey A - Rod , stop listening to your thousand " Yes Men " , stop changing your mind and lawyers every two minutes , take the deal , check your ego for a change and spare the Yanks further grief !
Representatives of Alex Rodriguez denied reports that they are negotiating the length of his suspension with Major League Baseball and claim that the real negotiations are happening between MLB and the New York Yankees, according to Stephen A. Smith of ESPN.
Appearing on ESPN's "SportsCenter" Saturday morning, Smith reported that A-Rod's camp reached out to him and "adamantly stated" that they are not negotiating with MLB.
"Alex Rodriguez' camp has adamantly stated, they are not negotiating, they don't care. They are waiting for Major League Baseball 'to bring it on.' Those were their words. 'And we will see them in Federal court. What are they waiting for? Stop talking us to death and bring on the suspension. Let's go.' These are their exact words."
Smith added that any negotiations between A-Rod and MLB are "non-existent." According to the representatives, the Yankees are trying to get Rodriguez' contract voided which means they want A-Rod banned for life and MLB is deciding whether or not to "acquiesce to the wishes of the New York Yankees."
( Tenor of remarks - accusing MLB and Yanks of conspiring to ban him for life and snatch away his 96 million buck contract seems delusional , but that's A - rod ! )
Klapisch: Troubled A-Rod plays it cool in Trenton
SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 2013 LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY AUGUST 3, 2013, 12:39 AM
The Yankees' Alex Rodriguez surrounded by fans and media before Friday night's minor league game in Trenton.
TRENTON – Judgment Day is only 24 hours away for Alex Rodriguez — 48, tops — but if he’s going down, it won’t be peacefully. The slugger leveled his harshest criticism to date of Yankee ownership and Bud Selig, all but suggesting they’re colluding to strip him of the $96 million he’s owed through 2017.
“There’s more than one party that benefits from me not ever stepping back on the field,” A-Rod said Friday night. “Not my teammates, not Yankee fans.”
It’s a staggering indictment to even suggest the commissioner is in cahoots with the game’s biggest franchise, but Rodriguez has obviously gone to the mat. He could face as much as a lifetime ban on Monday, and if the tenor of his remarks is any barometer, he’s not afraid of what’s around the corner. Compromise? For now, it’s a dirty word.
Rodriguez suited up for the Class AA Thunder in what’s supposed to be a two-day rehab stint before he joins the Yankees in Chicago on Monday. Even though A-Rod hit a massive home run in the third inning Friday night, finishing 1-for-2 with a walk, the focus was hardly on baseball.
Instead, it’s all about the fierce struggle he and his lawyers are waging with Selig, via the players association. Sources confirm a New York Post report that says the commissioner has given the nine other players involved in the Biogenesis scandal until Sunday night to decide whether to accept their punishment or file an appeal. Either way, the announcements are coming on Monday.
A-Rod’s case is bigger, louder, more complex, certainly more volatile. The evidence against him is said to be overwhelming and the potential punishment is equally staggering. Selig is ready to deliver a ban through 2014, provided A-Rod doesn’t appeal. If he does, Selig will go for the nuclear option, a permanent ban.
A-Rod, who recently hired a new set of lawyers to handle the eleventh-hour negotiations with Major League Baseball, isn’t ready to settle. That much was made clear during his post-game press conference Friday. Yet, Rodriguez’s shortest path to victory is through creative deal-making: he lets Selig punish him through the Collective Bargaining Agreement, not the Joint Drug Agreement, which means he cannot play during the appeal process. But in exchange for sitting out, Rodriguez stipulates that an independent arbitrator, and not Selig, gets to hear the case. It’s hard to believe a third party will sign off on keeping Rodriguez out of the game forever like Pete Rose or Shoeless Joe Jackson.
( Bizarro A-rod continues setting his pants of fire and then complaining about air pollution ... Cashman and Yanks ownership plays it , oh so cool ......)
The most important deadline in Alex Rodriguez’s career — and right up there in Bud Selig’s legacy, too — arrives tomorrow evening.
Rodriguez showed once again last night he’s not going away easily.
The Post has learned Major League Baseball yesterday notified A-Rod and other players linked to Biogenesis they have until 6 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow to settle on suspensions for their alleged involvements with the now-shuttered anti-aging clinic in South Florida. MLB intends to announce all of the suspensions on Monday, multiple sources said — perhaps hours before Rodriguez could be scheduled to make his 2013 major league debut for the Yankees in Chicago.
N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg
GUESS WHO’S BACK?Alex Rodriguez stands in the field at third base during last night’s rehab game in Trenton, N.J.
N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg
MR. POPULARITY: Not every fan was happy to see Alex Rodriguez last night, with one holding up a “cheater” sign as Rodriguez signed autographs before the game.
But not before taking another shot at the Yankees and MLB.
“There’s a lot of layers,” Rodriguez said after playing a rehab game for Double-A Trenton. “I will say this: There’s more than one party that benefits from me not ever stepping back on the field. That’s not my teammates and it’s not the Yankee fans.”
When asked who the parties were, Rodriguez said: “I can’t tell you that right now... And I hope I never have to.”
Rodriguez homered in a rehab game for Trenton at Arm & Hammer Park and said he had been told by general manager Brian Cashman and assistant GM Jean Afterman yesterday the team plans for him to play Monday against the White Sox.
A lot could happen before then.
Of all the Biogenesis players, A-Rod’s case stands out as the biggest, in terms of his alleged offenses (obstruction of baseball’s investigation in addition to purchasing illegal performance-enhancing drugs), and also the most contentious. The other players, in a group of about nine that features Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli, Texas outfielder Nelson Cruz and Detroit shortstop Jhonny Peralta, are all facing suspensions of around 50 games, and there remains optimism all of them will accept without an appeal.
There have been conversations between MLB officials and their Players Association counterparts and also between the PA and Rodriguez’s legal team, but there was little indication yesterday A-Rod and MLB had made any progress in finding common ground.
Selig has been threatening to suspend Rodriguez for life if he doesn’t plea to a lesser punishment, yet that could prove an overreach by baseball’s commissioner — legally and public-relations wise — for a player who is viewed as a zero-time offender by baseball’s laws.
For all of his bluster, A-Rod could relent and agree to a lesser penalty; MLB would like to suspend him through the 2014 season. That deadline could be pushed back if the two sides feel they’re progressing toward a settlement. Undoubtedly, Selig would like to announce Monday all of the cases have been resolved, boast of his sport’s toughness against illegal PEDs and encourage fans to refocus on the pennant races. Even a single appeal, especially by Rodriguez, would keep the Biogenesis saga alive.
Rodriguez didn’t sound ready to relent last night.
When asked why he felt entities were against him, Rodriguez initially said he wasn’t sure.
Then he fired away at his employers.
“I think it’s pretty self-explanatory,” Rodriguez said. “I think we all agree that we want to get rid of PEDs. That’s a must. I think all the players, we all feel that way. But when all this stuff is going on in the background and people are finding creative ways to cancel your contract and stuff like that, I think that’s concerning for me, it’s concerning for the present and I think it should be concerning for future players, as well. There is a process.”
If there is no agreement with A-Rod, Selig must decide whether to keep the beleaguered third baseman on or off the field during the appeals process. He could accomplish sidelining Rodriguez by using the “best interests of baseball” clause in the Basic Agreement, a route that would emphasize the obstruction charge. If MLB wanted to lean primarily on its purported evidence that A-Rod used illegal PEDS as often as every season from 2009 through last year, then that would fall under the Joint Drug Agreement, and Rodriguez could keep playing as he awaited his hearing.
Last night marked A-Rod’s 14th minor league game of the season and he went 1-for-2 with a walk and a mammoth home run to left-center that he admired before trotting around the bases.
Rodriguez had spent nine days rehabilitating in Tampa before joining Trenton yesterday afternoon. He is scheduled to play again for the Thunder tonight, and if he emerges healthy, he would rest tomorrow before presumably meeting up with the Yankees in the Midwest.
“I’m mentally prepared to play for five more years,” said Rodriguez, who insisted he’s not ready to retire.
“It’s not time for me to hang it up. I have a lot more fight in me.”
Whether A-Rod actually plays in a Yankees game this season or ever again, even with a return so close, is very much up in the air. The clock is ticking.
Alex Rodriguez’s amazing race against the clock will take him tonight to Trenton, where he could try once again to rev up his playing career — or where Major League Baseball could pop him before he even enters the ballpark.
Either way, a source told The Post, the Yankees’ beleaguered third baseman isn’t ready to give in to commissioner Bud Selig.
The Yankees announced last night Rodriguez, after participating in a simulated game yesterday at Steinbrenner Field, will play tonight and tomorrow night for their Double-A affiliate in Trenton as part of his rehabilitation from a strained left quadriceps. That would put him on track to rejoin the Yankees Monday in Chicago, but that is of course subject to any proclamations by Selig, who is on the verge of issuing suspensions to A-Rod and nine other players for their alleged involvement in the shuttered Biogenesis anti-aging clinic in South Florida.
Reuters
DEAL OR NO DEAL? Alex Rodriguez could be facing a lifetime suspension from commissioner Bud Selig if he doesn’t agree to a deal that keeps him off the field for approximately a full season
The announced discipline of Rodriguez could come later than, and separately from, that of the other nine players because baseball views his purported transgressions as considerably more serious than those of his fellow suspects — he’s accused of obstructing MLB’s investigation as well as purchasing illegal performance-enhancing drugs each of the four prior seasons — and therefore his situation is more complicated. While there have been continuing talks between both MLB officials and their Players Association counterparts and the PA and A-Rod’s representatives, indications are there has been no direct conversation betwee* MLB and Rodriguez’s legal team since a meeting last week in which possible punishments were discussed.
Optimism was dimming an agreement could be reached, and a source said the three-time Most Valuable Player was ready to fight Selig’s ruling. As The Post reported yesterday, Rodriguez has added to his legal team recently, retaining the Manhattan law firm Cohen, Weiss and Simon.
Selig has threatened to give as much as a lifetime suspension to Rodriguez if he doesn’t agree to a deal which keeps him off the field approximately through next season. Without an agreement, Selig could suspend A-Rod via the Basic Agreement (for obstruction) rather than the Joint Drug Agreement (for purchasing the illegal PEDs), the critical difference being the former avenue would keep A-Rod off the field (and unpaid) as he prepares for his appeal. That would avoid the unpalatable scene, in MLB’s eyes, of Rodriguez playing for the Yankees as a suspended player, but it also would create more turbulence with the Players Association.
If Alex Rodriguez is seriously waffling on cutting a deal with Major League Baseball, as he is said to be doing, the Feds may have just given him a reason to reconsider.
Federal prosecutors have renewed their interest in Anthony Bosch and his Biogenesis anti-aging clinic, raising the specter of criminal drug distribution charges; if they subpoena Rodriguez, any sworn statements he might make in arbitration while challenging his pending suspension could put him in legal jeopardy.
News of the government’s new scrutiny came Thursday as A-Rod and his advisers were deciding whether to fight MLB’s looming discipline or accept a doping ban the way Brewers star Ryan Braun did last week. MLB and players association officials spent Thursday trying to finalize deals with the eight other players who will be suspended, but according to a source, those deals might not be completed until Sunday. If those players accept their 50-game suspensions, they would begin Monday. As of Thursday night, MLB and Rodriguez remained far apart on any kind of settlement, according to sources, although the involvement of the U.S. Attorney puts a different kind of pressure on Rodriguez.
“I think it’s devastating for Alex,” a source familiar with MLB’s investigation into Rodriguez and other ballplayers who are believed to have violated baseball’s collectively bargained drug program told the Daily News. “He would be under oath in an arbitration, and all the evidence baseball has on him would be available to prosecutors.”
MLB investigators have hundreds of emails, text messages and phone records linking Rodriguez to Bosch, sources have told The News, as well as documents and notes indicating transactions, dates and drug purchases. They may also have other evidence reflecting stronger financial ties between Rodriguez and Bosch.
“It’s 100 more reasons for him to settle,” added the source.
The Miami Herald reported on Thursday that prosecutors Patrick Sullivan and Sharad Motiani of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami will lead the investigation and that they have contacted former Biogenesis employee Porter Fischer, who earlier this year leaked documents to a South Florida weekly that linked Rodriguez and the other players to Bosch and his clinic.
and....
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