MLB's relentless pursuit of A-Rod has been over the top, obsessive - almost vindictive. When you look at how badly the league wants to be rid of Alex - you cannot help but wonder if the campaign is being secretly fueled by the Yankees, who want to escape his contract.
Thus, a real problem:
What should Robbie Cano - seeking a long-term Yankee contract - glean from watching the team's front office seemingly trying to strip A-Rod from his final years... when it was the Steinbrenner boys who originally brokered the deal?
Can Cano rightfully expect the Yankees to keep up their side of an eight to 10-year pact? If he gets hurt, will they scapegoat him, and try to have MLB carve him from the ranks? Yeesh. If I were Robbie - or any future free agent seeking a long term deal - would I feel secure in trusting Hal and Hank, especially after they ran AJ Burnett out of town? (By the way, if there was one owner who had the trust of players, when it came to covering contracts, it was their father.)
But I digress: When today's hearing convenes, I propose that A-Rod's team offers Exhibit A in the rotund form of Bartolo Colon, ace of the A's.
Three years ago, his career had tanked, and the Yankees siphoned him up from the bilge. Bartolo had undergone a mysterious miracle shoulder procedure, which apparently turned out to involve a hypodermic needle. Last year, his urine glowed like a debutante after a night with Justin Beiber. He tested positive and sat out 50 games. Then last winter, his name surfaced in the Biogenesis scandal. If anybody was looking for a repeat offender, Bartolo Colon would make the perfect poster boy.
So what did MLB do? It cut a deal, the sweetest deal around.
If Colon pleaded guilty, thereby adding credibility to Selig's kangaroo court, he would be sentenced to time served: In others words, nothing. Nada. Not one game. Because he missed 50 last year, the second infraction wouldn't matter. Meanwhile, MLB could point to Bartolo and say, "Look, he admits it! This proves our investigation is credible! He has confessed to his crime!"
My god, what a joke.
MLB has claimed that A-Rod's "repeat violations" - though he hasn't failed a test since the new regs went into effect - deserve what in essence is a lifetime ban - a year and a half suspension. At his age, to miss 200 games is the de facto death penalty. Meanwhile, Bartolo will pitch tonight and surely next year - free and clear, without a blip. Put him down as the reason why any over-the-hill player should start taking Performance Enhancing Drugs.
Let's hope he becomes the World Series MVP. Wouldn't that be sweet?
With Colon on the mound, the fetid stench of the Bud/Steinspawn A-Rod vendetta will be hard to ignore. I'll be like that time our septic system failed...
ReplyDeleteGee, I wonder if any of the crack commentators at ESPN or the game announcers will note this highly obvious contrast between the way MLB has treated these two players. Hmmmmm....
ReplyDeleteI agree that what MLB is doing to A-Fraud is vindictive. But to be fair, the reason Colon did not get suspended again was, allegedly, that his positive test, resulting in his first suspension, was a result of the stuff he got from Biogenesis in the past. So if he had gotten another suspension it would have been a second punishment for the same offense.
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