Yankee’s Alex Rodriquez Suspended For 2014 Season

The Yankees will be without Alex Rodriguez for the entire 2014 baseball season. According to the USA Today, an arbitrator has upheld most of Major League Baseball's 211 game suspension.  Click for Rodriguez's reaction.

In reality, Alex Rodriguez's suspension was reduced by the arbitrator, originally baseball suspended him for 211 games.  The ruling handed down a 162 game suspension, which would be the entire 2014 season.  Rodriguez continues to deny using performance enhancing drugs and disputes baseball's authority to ban him without proof of a failed drug test.  The accusations came from paperwork uncovered in the Biogenesis investigation.

"The number of games sadly comes as no surprise, as the deck has been stacked against me from day one," he said. "This is one man's decision, that was not put before a fair and impartial jury, does not involve me having failed a single drug test, is at odds with the facts and is inconsistent with the terms of the Joint Drug Agreement and the Basic Agreement, and relies on testimony and documents that would never have been allowed in any court in the United States because they are false and wholly unreliable. This injustice is MLB's first step toward abolishing guaranteed contracts in the 2016 bargaining round, instituting lifetime bans for single violations of drug policy, and further insulating its corrupt investigative program from any variety defense by accused players, or any variety of objective review.

 

If the ruling stands, Rodriguez would lose about 25 million in salary during the upcoming season.  The future of his career would be in doubt too, as he turns 40 in 2015.  No surprise he says he plans to appeal the ruling.  Read more on the story.

SOURCE: USA Today