The Prosecution of A-Rod

Now that the New York yankees’ Alex Rodriguez and 13 other Major League Baseball players have been suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), now that the shady Miami clinic that supplied the drugs is out of business and under federal investigation, now that Rodriguez, 38 (who signed a $275 million contract in 2007, the game’s biggest ever, before admitting in February 2009 to past steroid use), faces a 211-game ban, it might look like justice has been done. It might seem as though commissioner Bud Selig has cleaned up a game that’s been tainted in the eyes of fans since juiced-up power hitters like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were launching moon shots in the late 1990s.

But as the scandal named for the Biogenesis clinic in Florida enters Month Seven, it is difficult to find much justice in this mess. The drug users may have broken baseball’s rules (although none of those punished have tested positive for PEDs), but baseball invented its own rules–and broke basic ethical ones–in hunting them down.

It all began in January, after a Miami New Times story revealed that Biogenesis, which had closed in December, had enough baseball players’ names in its records to start a new team. MLB responded to the report, which cast an unflattering light on the league’s drug-testing operation, by requesting that the paper turn over the documents that informed its story. The paper declined. So MLB sued the defunct clinic and three former employees, seeking monetary damages on the grounds that they had conspired to help players violate MLB’s joint drug agreement. The lawsuit had no chance–but its other purpose was to make the clinic turn over its records. That didn’t work either. MLB did, however, acquire a slew of phone records, instant messages and other electronic data through a series of subpoenas. Its officials then used the recovered information in negotiations with the accused players.

According to reports, baseball also took a page straight from the law-enforcement playbook: MLB paid an informant, buying records from a former Biogenesis employee.

The new records did not provide enough to clinch MLB’s investigation, though, so the league went further. It put the screws to Anthony Bosch, the former Biogenesis boss. In exchange for dirt on players, MLB offered to pay his legal bills and reportedly would put in a good word with the federal investigators who were then poking around his life. What world had we entered? Not only had a sports league offered up the federal government as its pawn, but it had done so to extract information from an alleged drug dealer about drug users.

This one-diamond circus landed in Chicago on Aug. 5, when Rodriguez was slated to play his first game of the season after recovering from hip surgery. It was the same day the punishments were to be announced. There were rumors of a lifetime ban, but the verdict was less final, though plenty stout: Rodriguez was banned from baseball through the 2014 regular season. He has since appealed and is free to play until an arbitrator rules on his suspension.

A little less than two hours before the first pitch, Rodriguez faced a media swarm at the White Sox’s U.S. Cellular Field. He didn’t give them much. Rodriguez said the past seven months had been the worst time in his life, that he would not discuss any specifics of his case and that he was disappointed.

When Rodriguez took the field later that night, White Sox fans booed mercilessly. They did so again when he came to bat in the second inning. But when his blooper landed between the left fielder and the shortstop, a hint of bemused applause emerged from the still booing crowd. He didn’t have another hit the rest of the night. The fading, crippled Yankees, who desperately need his power rather than his problems, lost 8-1.

His crusade is a lonely one. Rodriguez is the only player appealing his punishment. The other 13 players suspended on Aug. 5 accepted a 50-game ban, timed to end just before the playoffs begin, on the condition that they will not appeal. (Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun accepted a 65-game suspension last month.) How could the players say no?

Rodriguez’s 211-game ban, which could cost him $34 million in salary, is a seemingly arbitrary penalty. It’s possible only because Rodriguez is the lone player accused of violating MLB’s Basic Agreement by “attempting to cover up his violations,” which left him open to more-substantial punishment. Rodriguez was allegedly negotiating to buy Biogenesis’ records to keep them out of the league’s hands–essentially an attempt to use the same tactic in his own defense that the league used in its pursuit of him.

So Rodriguez will play through his appeal, giving the slumping Yankees a long-missed right-handed bat. Common sense would suggest that the suspension will emerge from arbitration intact but shorter, although common sense has never much applied to drug testing in pro sports. Meanwhile, MLB and the union must sift through bigger questions: Is the backdoor evidence-buying really cleaning up the game? Or is it all a big show, more for the benefit of finger-wagging sports pundits than fans? A-Rod won’t be answering those questions, either–instead, he’ll make them a lot trickier.