The drama between Alex Rodriguez and the New York Yankees may have taken a new turn on Tuesday afternoon. On Sunday, the team administered an MRI for A-Rod to examine his injured quad and declared that he is going to miss another 7-10 days with a Grade 1 quad strain. Rodriguez chose to seek a second opinion from his own doctor, and apparently the results were totally different.
During an interview with Mike Francesa on WFAN, Dr. Michael Gross claimed that he examined Rodriguez’s MRI results on Tuesday morning and saw no injury at all. In fact, our good friend Jimmy Traina informed us that Gross declared A-Rod is “100% fine” and could play right now.
“I spent about 20 minutes going over his MRI, particularly at his quadricep muscle,” Gross told Francesa, via Traina “To be perfectly honest, I don’t see any sort of injury there.”
Suddenly, the theory that the Yankees are trying to slow A-Rod’s return looks a bit more plausible. Unless, of course, Rodriguez had arranged this entire thing himself. However, I doubt a doctor would lie and declare that his MRI results look perfectly clean. Gross added that the only way to truly diagnose a Grade 1 strain is by symptoms a patient reports, and A-Rod told him that he feels no pain.
In a previous report, a source allegedly told ESPNNewYork.com that A-Rod felt something was “really off” about the Yankees seeming angry that he was excited his doctor cleared him to return to the field.
Brian Monzo, one of the producers for Francesa’s show, noted that the MRI Gross examined is the same MRI the Yankees looked at and declared that Rodriguez has a Grade 1 strain and needs another week or so off. If Gross was not given permission by A-Rod to discuss his injury on the air, he would have been violating the doctor-patient confidentiality agreement. In other words, it’s obvious A-Rod wanted his doctor to take the issue public.
This situation has gotten so ugly that it is impossible to separate truth from fiction. Between the injury disagreement and the looming suspension, Rodriguez’s career off the field has turned into a complete sideshow.
Video via Twitter/Jimmy Traina
