On the day suspended Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez announced his intention to sue the MLB Players Association, the group held a 90-minute conference call during which the overwhelming agreement was that Rodriguez should be expelled, reports Jeff Passan and Tim Brown of Yahoo! Sports.
Alex Rodriguez suspension: MLBPA discussed A-Rod expulsion
Alex Rodriguez doesn’t have a whole lot of friends left, and he’s losing more by the day.
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However, leaders of the union struck down the proposal -- not because they disagreed with the idea, per se, but rather because they did not believe it was legally possible to kick out one of their members. Even after that was expressed, players on the call repeatedly asked to make an attempt. According to the report, not one member defended Rodriguez’s right to remain in the union.
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Rodriguez had initially been suspended for 211 games for his part in the Biogenesis scandal. After a lengthy and messy appeals hearing, an independent arbitrator reduced the sentence to the full 2014 season. That, however, was not good enough for Rodriguez and he is now looking to take both Major League Baseball and the Players Association to federal court in an attempt to overturn his suspension.
In his suit, Rodriguez claims that the MLBPA had “completely abdicated its responsibility” to him during his hearings. It may be a tough sell for Rodriguez to win that case, however. The MLBPA apparently expected he might try to blame them in some way and thus hired their own lawyers to closely watch the appeal hearings and make sure the Association’s legal duties to Rodriguez were fulfilled.
No player has been disallowed from the union since 1995, when “scab” players during the strike were denied the benefits that would typically be provided to them.
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