MLBPA has released a statement saying that it is considering legal options amidst news that Tony Bosch and MLB executive Rob Manfred will appear on 60 Minutes tonight. "After learning of tonight's 60 Minutes segment, Players have expressed anger over, among other things, MLB's inability to let the result of yesterday's decision speak for itself," says the MLBPA.
The news of Bosch and Manfred's interviews comes a day after the decision to reduce Alex Rodriguez's suspension to 162 games. Although the suspension was reduced from 211 games, the decision was still widely considered to be a victory for Major League Baseball. The MLBPA feels that the interviews are "inconsistent with our collectively-bargained arbitration process" and the confidentiality stipulated by the Joint Drug Agreement.
"It is unfortunate that Major League Baseball apparently lacks faith in the integrity and finality of the arbitrator's decision and our Joint Drug Agreement, such that it could not resist the temptation to publicly pile-on against Alex Rodriguez," the statement reads. "It is equally troubling that the MLB-appointed Panel Arbitrator [Manfred] will himself be appearing in the '60 Minutes' segment, and that Tony Bosch, MLB's principal witness, is appearing on the program with MLB's blessing."
Yesterday, the MLBPA released a separate statement, saying that it disagreed with the arbitrator's decision in Rodriguez's case, but adding that it recognized the decision was "legal and binding" and that it respected the process that led to it.
Major League Baseball; Where we pay people that sold PEDs to our players, sometimes they even get segments on 60 minutes too.
You leave out that part where Arod went public and attacked the mlb and Bosch.
After months of leaks by MLB doing the same.
Also sold to kids.
I did not know that, thanks for informing me!
I think Manfred’s excitement to skewer Rodriguez and invite personal attention to his over zealous pursuit will ultimately cost him the big job (replacing Selig). In the end, the owners make a ton of cash and dont want any trouble and the more this guy becomes a polarizing personality the more ammo the owners have to install a better figure head.
I lack faith in the ability of the players, as well as the MLBPA to police themselves. Maybe having this dirty laundry come out will shame them some more.
Shame them into doing what, exactly?
Agree
so A-rod going on WFAN, and his “lawyer” leaking to the press during the whole process was ok MLBPA? hmmmmm
MLB should require that if Bosch and Manfred are going to speak on TV about the decision; A-Rod needs to be present during the interview, and Mike Francesa will be conducting the interview. You could not put a price tag on the value of that entertainment.
A-Rod and his legal team were asked to appear by 60 Minutes and refused.
He still would need his security blanket in Francesa, and I don’t think they reached out to him.
According to several reports I read 60 Minutes said they did although Tacopina said he was never contacted (but I wouldn’t believe him if he told me gravity was fact). You are right though, unless there is someone there to coddle him and stroke his ego A-Rod is lost. Even then he is not to light on his feet.
I think it’s time for MLB to go after the MLBPA come next contract. They have far too much power for “employees.”
you’re wrong. The employees provide an extremely statistically rare skill set (top notch players) with no obvious replacement. Because they generate most of the revenue their leverage as just as great as those controlling the infrastructure.
Totally Agree and it is the owners who ultimately allowed this to happen.
Basically over the last 20 years MLBPA has positioned themselves to dictate contracts and agreements without regard for the overall health of MLB. The owners are the ones who have allowed crazy contracts. Plain and simple because of monster contracts they now want to hold players accountable to true stats not allocate because of PED’s. The owners are now scared to death that signed large contracts will back fire when these players come off the PED’s.
Bottom line sports needs to clean itself up in a big way and make rules that say any player caught has 5 year ban, second time is lifetime ban. Players also loose right to challenge results in court to avoid circus of sport.
Good luck on getting the players to agree. MLB can not unlilaterally impose rules.
Also, players earn only 47% of revenue. Despite the crazy contracts, they are actually making less as a percentage of revenue than they did a few years ago.
Yeah, we all know how great an idea it is to break unions. Pretty sure that is the first thing fascists do when they gain control….
I don’t understand why anyone besides team owners would want to go back to a system where the best players have to take jobs in the offseason and basically have no rights.
Shall we also reimpose the reserve clause? Major League Baseball as a draw exists because of the players, it is their skill, their talent that is being monetized to amazing degrees. They should have the power.
And yet, if there were no owners, there would be no baseball. Employee’s in a regular business don’t have the power and they should not in baseball. In reality, they need each other and when both sides realize that it is a win-win. But that is in a perfect world.
You’re wrong — there are plenty of rich people that would love to own MLB teams. However, this is a closed club that only lets in the good old boys.
Fans spend billions of dollars and thousands of hours engaging with this product, only to be cheated by players like A-Rod out of a fair performance. And when people like him are caught and punished, we also deserve to know how and why it happened. MLB has a right to show the public the extent of what happened to make clear their case was not purely vindictive. Maybe the MLBPA should worry more about the conduct of its members and less about shielding them from the consequences OF their conduct.
How did they cheat you? Baseball is an entertainment product with rules in place to punish those that break them. You should be pissed at the MLB for arbitrarily deciding to circumvent the agreed upon rules to drag your sport through the mud week in and week out.
If A-rod is given a 50 game suspension this case doesnt even make it to an arbitrator. This is complete an MLB farce where the major issue isnt cheating (because that was already agreed upon) it is process.
The players that used PEDs cheated us out of seeing a fair competition. It is entertainment, but it is also a competition. And since players literally have nothing if they don’t have fan support, they have something of an obligation to repay fans with fairness and honesty. I have no trouble whatsoever watching the players that took that from us be dragged through the mud as a result.
So, that is why the players union and the owners sit down and try to create a system that punishes cheating of various degrees and build systems to prevent it through testing and admin moving forward. I get the anger toward A-rod here, but you are going to be pissed when the commissioner decides to levy a punishment that is out of line with the crime to your favorite team or player and then sites incidents like this as “discretion to prevent degradation of the sport.”
If you demand the players be accountable, you should demand that the league be accountable in the same way. This is not that.
Both were held accountable in 1995 when there was a 20% drop in attendance after cancelling the world series in 1994. Now THAT robbed the fans and drove me away from the game for 9 years. If people just stopped paying the prices to go to the games, then the power goes to the consumer. What is needed is a “fan union” to have organized strikes!
Explain how they circumvented the agreed upon rules. The agreed upon JDA, as well as the CBA, both have a “just cause” provision, The CBA clearly states that a player cannot interfere with an investigation (I am guessing Alex missed that day in class) and the independent arbitrator (hired and employed by the MLBPA and MLB equally) who heard all the testimony and viewed all the physical evidence agreed that there was “just cause”. If all Alex did was purchase PED’s like the others he would have received 50 games but he went well beyond that.
Feeling “cheated” because A-Rod juiced is like feeling cheated because you found out your favorite actress had plastic surgery.
60 Minutes is basically a paid PR program for anyone who wants some airtime. MLB is absolutely paying for the coverage to make A-Rod look as bad as possible and potentially tainting any witness pool by having as much “evidence” pre-determine his guilt in advance of any legal action on his part.
It’s a smart move by MLB, especially seeing how 60 minutes is easily bought these days for whatever amount of coverage you want to buy.
You’re right, just in the last few months they had both the fake Benghazi witness and the hilariously inaccurate Clean Tech hatchet job. 60 Minutes no longer has any credibility.
Love how MLB is making PED’s the most important topic for fans and the public to be talking about when related to baseball.
Besides the fact that Manfred conflict of interest as panel of the arbitration case Selig made the Steroid era and now took many star players who made baseball popular and throw them under the bus.
Manfred and Selig want to come across as heroes and this interview damges the MLB brand even more.
MLB did not make PED’s the issue. A-Rod, Braun and the other 12 caught with their hands in the testosterone jar did.
Thanks to a media leak. The players passed MLB’s PED test.
I believe the Steroid Era in Baseball started before 1992 when Bud Selig became the commissioner of Major League Baseball.
The offensive jump occurred in 1994 when Bud juiced the balls
There was a pretty sizeable jump in 1987.
Get your facts straight. ARod made a public statement where he accused mlb. So MLB should just let that go unanswered?
They just suspended him for 162 games, what more do they want. Also, they have an agreement with MLBPA. If they want to break it because someone else does, well, isn’t that what steroid users do to justify their use, because others use?
Yes. People dont get it. Selig is making a mockery of the sport as he rides into the sunset. The process is done, this move screams of having an agenda.
The best part is going to be when Arod sends this to the upper courts under the clause of unreasonably singled out and he cites the fact that the MLB went on national news to continue to further their cause, an unprecented move for the league.
This whole issue has been run in a clown like manner and its going to bite Manfred personally and hurt MLB.
Here is where A-Rod and some posters on these threads keep going wrong when it comes to the appeal of his arbitration decision. The federal courts can only consider the arbitrators decision and not the facts or evidence presented in the case. “”Arbitration is chosen by parties for the express purpose of avoiding litigation. Courts are well aware of this. And in order to not undermine the integrity of arbitration awards, they very, very rarely overturn them. Indeed, The Federal Arbitration Act provides the grounds for review of an arbitration decision. Such review is limited to overturning awards obtained by corruption or fraud. Or where the arbitrator himself is shown to be corrupted or to have engaged in misconduct of some kind or has shown a “manifest disregard for the law.” Federal courts do not look at the facts and evidence anew and substitute their judgment for that of the arbitrator.
If there was any doubt about this at all, one merely peruse the trilogy of seminal decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court on the matter — Steelworkers v. Warrior & Gulf Navigation Co, Steelworkers v. Enterprise Car and United Paperworkers v. Misco – and they can see how tall and steep a hill A-Rod has to climb:
Federal courts should decline to review the merits of arbitration awards under collective bargaining agreements . . . The question of interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement is a question for the arbitrator, and the courts have no business overruling his construction of the contract merely because their interpretation of it is different from his.” (source article by Lawyer Craig Calcaterra ).
Mr. Horowitz is a lawyer specializing in labor law has been an independent arbitrator since 1988 and I can find no evidence that he has ever had a decision overturned.
There was no conflict of interest. The panels are always comprised of an independent arbitrator, a mlb rep, and a player’s association rep. Standard operating procedure as agreed upon by the CBA.
What is with the MLBPA? So it is ok for ARod to speak publicly, but his accusers can’t.
It is an agreement by MLB and MLBPA. Arod can do what he pleases.
Bosch is not bound by the JDA or CBA since he is not an employee of MLB or a member of the MLBPA. Manfred on the other hand must be careful as to what he says so as not to violate the confidentiality agreements within the JDA or CBA. As an experienced lawyer I would be surprised if he slips up.
Come on, MLB bought him out. Pretty sure they could have told him that the terms of their agreement includes no public interviews about the Arod case. The fact their COO appears on the same show, and the arbitrator released his findings to accomodate the show suggest this is an MLB show
Yep….and Superman, Santa Clause, The Tooth Fairy and Elvis are all living in sin in the mountains of Peru. I have maps for sale if you want one.
On Machu Picchu? Who wouldn’t live there with such an awesome name. I bet James Bonds rides Machu Picchu’s curves in his Aston Martin DB5 every day watching the sun set.
You have a map too?
All of that is more believable than arod sending bosch to columbia to have him killed but i guess some people will believe what they want.
Why? Porter Fischer was also in fear first from Bosch and then A-Rod. With an estimated personal wealth of $300,000,000 many things are possible. You combine that amount of money and a super-sized ego anything is possible.
Well for one thing arod wouldn’t need someone to go to columbia to have him killed.
Were would there be a better chance of something like that being found out and tied to A-Rod, here or Columbia?
I’m pretty sure Tony Bosch is a private citizen and can do whatever he wants without the MLBPA’s blessing.
No, he’s a drug dealer who is paid and employed by MLB binded by a legal agreement but even if that wasn’t the case why in the world is the arbitrator going on 60 minutes as well? Selig has some serious personal vendetta against alex.
Bosch is not employed by MLB and as long as Manfred does not reveal any of the goings-on of the arbitration he is free to speak as well. He, or anyone from MLB or MLBPA may speak to any information that was made public by a 3rd party (such as the info published by the Miami New Times). It is all covered in the “confidentiality” sections of the JDA and CBA
Not sure how you define employed but he has cost them over 2 million dollars, so I think MLB has some control over him
Legal definition employee n. a person who is hired for a wage, salary, fee or payment to perform work for an employer. MLB paid for his security as he had viable threats against his life 9as did Porter Fischer), his housing in NY during the arbitration process, and according to some reports helped with legal bills. That does not qualify as an employee other wise every police informant would be a city, state or federal employee.
Frederic Horowitz is the arbitrator while Rob Manfred presented baseball’s case in the arbitration process
Slugger is correct in the sense that Mr. Manfred and well as Mr. Pouty of the MLBPA both sat on the arbitration panel. It is always comprised of three people; one rep from each side and then the panel is “headed’ by the independent arbitrator who is hired by both MLB and the MLBPA.
Bosch is a rat. You shouldn’t be able to rat on others then go on 60 minutes. If this was a street level case he would be in witness protection, not blabbing on 60 minutes. I understand MLBPAs disgust and concern. Bud Selig needs to take the high road and just claim victory. I hate A-Rod just as many others do but don’t rub it in a lose public support over the way this is handled. You can kill the dog , just don’t parade the corpse through the streets.
You might try telling that to Diane Sawyer and ABC. During her run on the show Prime Time, she did an interview with Sammy”The Bull” Gravano, who ratted out John Gotti after he (Sammy) was implicated in about 20 murders.
MLB is a joke. I actually feel bad for arod
you feel bad for a rod because MLB is trying to get and then keep the game clean?
Seems to me they just want to save the Yankees 25 million so they can get them back to the playoffs and boost ratings, which allows MLB to charge more for the playoff games rights.
That’s ridiculous, NYY would have spent a ton regardless of A-Rod’s situation, reports were saying they would either go all in and spend a bunch or be conservative, obviously they took the former. 25 million is nothing for the Yankees.
Despite spending a bunch their payroll is over 50 million lower than 2013. Theoretically, they could sign Tanaka, Drew and Balfour and be a threat in the AL East thanks to the Arod savings. Of course, they could just pocket the savings and spend it next year when the tax is rest to 17%
They were in on balfour and tanaka anyway. Drew won’t change much.
I’m a Yankee fan and I agree with this…
60 Minutes is 60 minutes
I remember when they had a Derek Jeter Interview and he was complaining, he couldn’t go the corner grocery store without getting noticed.
Also, didn’t A-Rod get some model’s phone number during a playoff game?
This whole thing is a soap opera!
MLB should stop horsing around, actually all sports should do the same.
You take steroids or HGH or some form of PED once and you get caught, you’re done! It’s over and no recourse! I am tired of the drama and this dancing bear nonsense!
Nice to see selig had time for this but not the actual hearing.
Where does it say that Selig is appearing on 60 minutes?
Strangley his part was already over by the time you asked this.
He appeared. What a joke.
In the history of JDA grievances the Commish. has never testified. The JDA states that neither the Commish. or the player can be compelled to testify. A-Rod is the only player ever charged that has not testified after his staged hissy-fit. The charges against A-rod were brought by “the Office of the Commissioner”. As COO Manfred is part of that office and the one who headed the investigation. If the DA’s office brings charges it does not mean the DA himself will be participating in the case. Commissioners have testified in the past but only when the grievance concerned the Commish. himself using his “best interest” power.
It’s nice that the JDA occasionally matters. Care to show me the part that mentions a 162 gm suspension? Selig wasn’t compelled to appear on 60 minutes either but had no problem doing so.
162 games was the decision of the independent arbitrator who is employed by both the MLBPA and MLB, arrived at based on the preponderance of evidence. Under the “Just Cause” clause of the JDA as well as the same clause in the CBA, purchasing PED’s for years, interfering with an investigation (which is forbidden in the CBA), attempted bribery, attempts to purchase evidence with the intent of destroying it etc. all make the original 211 games or 162 games reasonable. Alex wasn’t compelled to appear on the radio right after his hissy-fit (with a car conveniently waiting right out side as if on cue) but he did. If A-Rod wants the “truth” to come out all he has to do is sign a release and all evidence can be released. He has refused. A funny reaction for someone trying to prove his innocence.
I dont understand why the yankees get any financial relief towards the cap , Team and player should both be penalized for this
Payroll figures are for 40-man rosters and include salaries and prorated shares of signing bonuses, earned incentive bonuses, non-cash compensation, buyouts of unexercised options and cash transactions, such as money included in trades
Since A-Rod is suspended for the entire year, he is not on the 40 man roster, so his salary doesn’t count towards the team payroll. Hope this helps.
Just like the teacher union have ruined our educational system (because they don’t care about the product only the teachers) so is the MLBPA ruining baseball for the fans. What value does the MLBPA provide back to us the consumer? Zero… nothing at all. What they do provide is an environment of enriching the life of the player beyond what is reasonable and or what is to be expected in the world of sports. Do they improve the product? No they don’t that is not their interest or concern. All they care about is protecting the players. Just remember that when there is a strike in a few years because the replacement players will be just as good but you the fan will get to enjoy the game again with less drama from diva millionaires, spoiled little sissys that don’t even want to get their jerseys dirty, and hopefully cheaper seats. The minor league games as it is is a much more enjoyable and affordable venue for the family.
None of the PED thing should have ever happened. The efforts of Selig and MLB are to be applauded but are twenty years too late; like putting up a street light at an intersection AFTER the sixth fatal accident. MLB and the owners were asleep at the switch and unfortunately, the fans have had to pay.
How can Rodriguez possibly withstand the reaction he would hear were he to take the field again after that 60 Minutes segment? I keep having thoughts of what it would have been like had the Black Sox been allowed to continue playing. The level of invective and disdain would be absolutely crushing.
So, MLB paid a guy they only know as “bob” $175,000 for paperwork they then paid Tony Bosh $2,000,000 to testify are his records. No names, no mention of banned substances, no failed drug test. Seems like an air tight case to me. I can’t imagine why some of you think this is about saving the Yankees money so they can be competitive again.
my first reply is in “review land” either because of references to particular news organizations or a particular word so I have altered it and will try again.
One thing not mentioned on 60 Min. is the personal notebooks of Tony Bosch that contain a “key” to the codes used by Bosch. The code names for every player and the drugs. A-Rods code name was “Cacique’ a pre-Columbian deity from many Caribbean Islands. He is also referred to as Alex Rod or Alex R. MLB has copies of those note books as evidence. The original notebooks (after several copies were made with some going to the Miami paper that broke the story) were given by Porter Fischer to one of his friends because he was in fear for his life. His friend told him that Bosch was out to “get” him. all Fischer wanted was his $4000 investment back from Bosch. Two days later before the story broke in the MNT Fischer’s friend gave him $4000 he got from Bosch after he told Bosch the books had been destroyed. Bosch asked what “did you destroy them?” and his friend said “No, I gave them to A-Rod’s people”. That is all from an interview with Porter Fischer in that Miami newspaper. They also published photo copies of Bosch’s note book. BTW, MLB tried to buy record from Fischer first but $125,000 was not enough for him.
I’m not sure what the MLBPA is asking for. For Bosch to keep his mouth shut? Doesn’t he have freedom of speech? Wouldn’t any true statements be legally protected?
One interesting point I’ve wondered about is whether his conversations with players are considered patient-doctor interactions. That would change the legal status. But if not, I don’t see what MLBPA can do.
Bosch was and is not a licensed Dr. nor did he ever employ any Drs. the only Dr.’s name that appears on any paper work is Bosch’s father Pedro who has vehemently denied ever meeting with or consulting A-Rod
Personally I do not feel that there is anything wrong with this going “public”, after all it is after all the evidence was submitted, reviewed and the punishment handed out. It is not like anything on this show will influence anything at this point. Make it public and show the world all the shame that is A-Roid.
Arod may continue to earn a fat paycheck from the Yankees for a few more years but I believe he has played his last game.