New York Yankees third-baseman Alex Rodriguez isn’t going down without a fight as Major League Baseball attempts to suspend him for the remainder of this season, as well as the entire 2014 MLB season. The MLB Player’s Association formally appealed Rodriguez’s 211-game suspension today, sending the case to an independent arbitrator.
A-Rod was suspended through the 2014 season on Monday when MLB penalized 13 players following an investigation into a Biogenesis clinic accused of distributing banned performance-enhancing drugs.
The other 12 players accepted 50-game suspensions. A-Rod is the only one of the 13 who will appeal, but whether or not it will work won’t be known until later this season at the earliest. It’s more likely though that the appeals process causes this case to drag into the beginning of the 2014 season. It will be interesting to see what happens if A-Rod loses his appeal, abut manages to play for the rest of the 2013 season.
For now, Rodriguez is at third base and batting third for the Yankees against the Chicago White Sox.