During a television interview this morning (video above), Alex Rodriguez’s lawyer Joe Tacopina confirmed they are filing suit today “requesting federal court intervention to undo what’s been done in this labor arbitration.” A-Rod said he would seek an injunction in his statement following the announcement of his record 162-game suspension on Saturday.
“I don’t know [the suspension is] inevitable. I mean 162 games is inexplicable,” added Tacopina. “It’s not based on the law, it’s not based on the Collective Bargaining Agreement that’s laid out between the union and Major League Baseball. There’s no basis for it. Everyone else got 50 games, who if you accept the fact that there was a finding of liability, that 50 games — somehow 162 is what was levied to Alex for no reason. Ryan Braun, who actually tested positive, unlike Alex, and went on a campaign to besmirch the test collector and called him an anti-Semite wound up with 65 games. That in and of itself is a basis to get us into federal court.”
From what I understand, a federal judge is unlikely to look at a case following an arbitrator’s ruling in a collectively bargained matter. As Wendy Thurm explained a few weeks ago, “Rodriguez will have to show that [arbitrator Fredric Horowitz] was so in cahoots with MLB that it led to a fraudulent or biased proceeding” in order to get the case looked at it. I don’t know what will happen next, but A-Rod’s camp is going to keep fighting.
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