New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez showed up for day 12 of his grievance hearing against Major League Baseball on Wednesday morning. The 38-year-old did not stay very long.
According to Newsday’s Steven Marcus, Rodriguez “stormed out” of his arbitration hearing at around noon EST. A-Rod’s camp was in the middle of the ongoing process of trying to have his 211-game suspension overturned.
The issue A-Rod had was apparently with MLB commissioner Bud Selig. ESPNNewYork.com reported that Rodriguez was angry after arbitrator Frederic Horowitz refused to force Selig to testify. He also allegedly slammed his hand on a table and pointed his finger at baseball COO Rob Manfred — who was in charge of baseball’s Biogenesis investigation — and shouted, “You know you’re full of sh–!”
“I am disgusted with this abusive process, designed to ensure that the player fails,” Rodriguez’s said in a statement. “I have sat through 10 days of testimony by felons and liars, sitting quietly through every minute, trying to respect the league and the process. This morning, after Bud Selig refused to come in and testify about his rationale for the unprecedented and totally baseless punishment he hit me with, the arbitrator selected by MLB and the Players Association refused to order Selig to come in and face me.
“The absurdity and injustice just became too much. I walked out and will not participate any further in this farce.”
A spokesman for Rodriguez told ESPNNewYork.com’s Wallace Matthews that he does not know where the hearing will go from here but that it will likely end up in federal court. We’ll likely know more about the situation later, but for now it sounds like another instance of A-Rod acting like a child. Disagreements are part of the arbitration process. Storming out of the hearing typically is not.
