I'm not a fan of A-Rod, but I just don't understand baseball's case.
Did the guy ever fail a drug test?
This really does seem like a witch hunt, even if everyone knows he's guilty. It just seems like flimsy evidence to make such a concrete ruling when it appears to be a clear conflict of interest, as the only testimony is coming from someone on baseball's payroll.
I also don't understand why baseball just doesn't let all of this stuff die a natural death, ignore it, and make for careful testing in the future. It seems like they are hell-bent on tarnishing their own image.
I'm usually not a huge fan of making pro athlete to real world analogies, but this is kind of where MLB is coming from:
Your employer:
"Dave, we know you're helping yourself to office supplies and bringing them home. We need you to stop. We're won't fire you. We'll put a note in your file and suspend you for one week without pay. You'll agree you took the items, we will all move on and you won't do it again."
You, knowing your company doesn't have video of it, nor a good accounting system of office goods (even though you knew you were guilty as sin):
"Screw you. I'm not signing anything, I'm not taking any un-paid time off. Prove it. Fire me and I'll sue."
Then, you not only snubbed your nose at your employer...you went on to helping yourself to boxes of...whatever. Pens and Kcups.
Your employer is going to be raging mad and will attempt to do whatever it takes, at this point, to not only prove it, but make a mockery out of you.
MLB tried going to Alex several times in the early stages of this and basically giving him the Ryan Braun treatment. "You know you're dirty, we know you're dirty...and let's make this go away. 50 games, you'll be back in no time." A-Rod tossed up both middle fingers and basically threatened to give anyone and everyone who came within the same zip code of his name and steroids the Lance Armstrong treatment (threatening legal action to "ruin" them). MLB didn't want it to go where it went. They would have preferred A Rod cop to it a year ago, take his 50 and call it a day.
This goes a lot deeper than the 60 minutes report on TV a couple weeks ago, and a lot longer.
So yes, MLB now has him dead to rights. I can't say I blame them. Stop stealing office supplies, Alex.
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