MLB will outline its case against Alex Rodriguez when COO Rob Manfred takes the stand Wednesday.
Now batting for Major League Baseball: Rob Manfred.
Alex Rodriguez’s doping-ban arbitration hearing resumes Wednesday for three days of testimony during which Manfred, MLB’s chief operating officer, is expected to take the witness stand and outline the investigation that led baseball to suspend Rodriguez for 211 games.
Manfred, a member of the three-person panel hearing the appeal of the suspension along with Players Association lawyer David Prouty and arbitrator Fredric Horowitz, is expected to testify about what MLB knows about Florida’s now-shuttered Biogenesis clinic, the source of performance enhancing drugs for more than a dozen players. Rodriguez is the only player appealing his suspension.
Prouty may also testify during the arbitration; it is not unusual under the
game’s collectively bargained drug agreement for the MLB and Players
Association representatives to testify.
An attorney and a driving force behind MLB’s anti-doping program, Manfred
is expected to outline how MLB decided on such an unprecedented number of
games for A-Rod’s ban, and what evidence the league gathered to prove that
Rodriguez interfered with the investigation by seeking to buy a trove of
Biogenesis documents that the league itself later bought and by possibly
compensating witnesses.
Manfred will vote to uphold the suspension, which was handed down by
commissioner Bud Selig, while Prouty, as the union rep, is expected to side
with the player. Horowitz, the arbitrator, will cast the deciding vote on A-
Rod’s punishment.
