A Major League Baseball arbitrator reduced Alex Rodriguez’s suspension from 211 games to 162 games on Saturday. The ban covers all of the 2014 season, including the playoffs. The suspension strangely does not cover spring training, which A-Rod vows to attend.
The suspension stems from Alex Rodriguez’s involvement in Biogenesis, a closed South Florida anti-aging clinic accused of supplying athletes with performance-enhancing drugs.
Rodriguez reacted strongly to the decision, pledging to take Major League Baseball to federal court to clear his name and get back into the game.
“The number of games sadly comes as no surprise, as the deck has been stacked against me from day one,” the infielder said in a prepared statement. “This is one man’s decision, that was not put before a fair and impartial jury, does not involve me having failed a single drug test, is at odds with the facts and is inconsistent with the terms of the Joint Drug Agreement and the Basic Agreement, and relies on testimony and documents that would never have been allowed in any court in the United States because they are false and wholly unreliable. This injustice is MLB’s first step toward abolishing guaranteed contracts in the 2016 bargaining round, instituting lifetime bans for single violations of drug policy, and further insulating its corrupt investigative program from any variety defense by accused players, or any variety of objective review.
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