It was reported that Alex Rodriguez’s legal team is challenging the assertion that he committed multiple violations of the league’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program and also denied reports that Rodriguez's lawyers tried to strike a deal with MLB that would have allowed A-Rod to accept a 100-game ban, retire and bank his remaining salary.
NY Daily News sports columnist Bill Madden was a guest on WFAN host Mike Francesa’s daily afternoon sports show on Tuesday. Madden said, according to his MLB sources, A-Rod’s legal team is basically lying. Madden says that “Alex’s people came with the 100-game ban,” but MLB “has so much evidence on him, that they turned the deal down.”
Madden went on to say that MLB is trying to force A-Rod into retirement, because he is supposedly the worst of the PED cheats.
Madden’s personal disdain for A-Rod was evident. He went as far as to call A-Rod “not too bright” because he admitted to using steroids in the first place, instead of, as Francesa says, “giving him credit for being honest.”
It got a little heated up in that studio.
Francesa asked Madden why A-Rod is the only guy that is attacked with such fervor, when there are hundreds of players who have taken PEDs?
He also asked why Bud Selig, the owners, other guilty players and everyone who initially ignored, co-signed and profited from this steroids fiasco, now gets to sit back and point fingers at one guy?
These are questions that real journalists need to ask. Francesa went on to say that the “evidence” that MLB supposedly has on A-Rod must be beyond terrible, because he is being treated like Whitey Bulger.
Francesa made another good point, saying that baseball should just release the other 100 names or so that didn’t get egregiously leaked in the Mitchell Report, so everyone can share in the blame equally, especially guys like Boston’s David Ortiz who was accused, denied it once and was never harassed about it again.
So, as much as we may want this to just go away, there is still too much drama to ignore. Contradicting stories, reports of bombshell evidence and the like. It’s the MLB’s version of “Love and Hip-Hop.”
