After several months of accusations hurled in the media, Alex Rodriguez's arbitration battle with Major League Baseball concluded when arbitrator Frederic Horowitz reduced A-Rod's historic 211-game suspension to 162 games, and eliminated the possibility that he'd be able to participate in the playoffs.
Rodriguez's team has long held that MLB's suspension was unprecedented, illegal, and inconsistent with the league's Joint Drug Agreement, often touted as the strongest in all the major American sports. Horowitz defended his ruling in writing.
"... No MLB player has been suspended for any substance abuse violation longer than one season ... A suspension of the entire 2014 season and 2014 postseason is supported by just cause. It is recognized this represents the longest disciplinary suspension imposed on a MLB player to date. Yes Rodriguez committed the most egregious violations of the JDA reported to date and engaged in at least two documented attempts to cover up that behavior in violation of the Basic Agreement. A suspension of one season satisfies the structures of just cause as commensurate with the severity of the his violations while affording Rodriguez the opportunity to resume his playing career in the 2015 career."
Part of A-Rod's legal team's defense was attacking Anthony Bosch, the man whose clinic had documents stolen and exposed which led to 13 players being outed and suspended for steroid use, including 2012 NL MVP Ryan Braun. Bosch was a key component of MLB's case against A-Rod; his former agent Scott Boras identified this as a serious misstep and a problem going forward for a league hell-bent on ridding itself of the scourge of PEDs.
"The integrity of the game is only partially served when a known pusher is exonerated, when the genesis of this entire problem is now given a forum and compensation and is not behind bars for the distribution and promoting the use of illegal drugs, not only to baseball players but all members of the sporting community and youth," Boras told Fox Sports.
"Until we rectify that problem, we have not addressed the central issue of eradicating PEDs from professional sports. ... If these individuals go free, it promotes behavior to create processes to distribute PEDs, knowing the league's focus is on the players, not on the distributors of drugs."
Horowitz dismissed Rodriguez's attacks on Bosch's credibility in his ruling. "When viewed as a whole, the hundreds of messages exchanged between Bosch and Rodriguez plainly support the findings of JDA violations contained herein,'' Horowitz wrote.
He acknowledged there are flaws in MLB's testing policies, but those issues "do not eviscerate credible testimony."
"The only reasonable inference to be drawn from the weight of the evidence,'' Horowitz wrote, "is that Rodriguez violated the JDA as alleged.''
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