Alex Rodriguez’s P.R. guy, Michael Sitrick, was allegedly served with a subpoena by Major League Baseball. They wanted him to testify in the arbitration as to whether he or his underlings leaked Biogenesis documents implicating Ryan Braun and Francisco Cervelli to the press. MLB believes that he did, and by doing so A-Rod -- through his rep -- impeded the Biogenesis investigation, thereby requiring that A-Rod receive a greater suspension than everyone else.
Problem: Sitrick did not appear to testify and the arbitration is now closed. And, as Rich Calder of the New York Post reports, MLB and Sitrick are fighting the matter of his subpoena out in court, with MLB trying to reopen the arbitration to get his testimony in.
Lots of legal things in there that are of interest to some of you, but the bigger take here: if Major League Baseball is frantically trying to get evidence of A-Rod’s obstruction after the arbitration is closed, how strong could their obstruction case as presented in the arbitration actually be? And if it’s not strong, what possible basis is there for a suspension more than four-times greater than that provided by the Joint Drug Agreement?
I’d guess that the evidence that A-Rod did something wrong, thereby justifying a suspension of some sort is pretty good as it compares to all of the other players who got 50-65 game suspensions out of all of this. But the case for over 200 games sounds like the weakest sauce imaginable.
