MLBPA rips MLB COO Rob Manfred for ’60 Minutes’ appearance

AP

Anthony Bosch, MLB’s star witness against Alex Rodriguez, gives his side of the story in an interview with ’60 Minutes.’

Hasn’t A-Rod suffered enough?

The Major League Baseball Players Association blasted MLB executive Rob Manfred Sunday for “publicly piling on” in a bombshell “60 Minutes” report that painted Alex Rodriguez as an inveterate doper the day after an arbitrator upheld the disgraced superstar’s 162-game doping ban — even though Rodriguez’s lawyer also appeared on the show.

The union issued a statement on Sunday that said Manfred, MLB’s chief operating officer, violated the confidentiality provision of baseball’s Joint Drug Agreement and undermined the integrity of the arbitration process by appearing on the CBS news magazine. The Players Association said it would consider “all legal options to remedy any breaches” committed by baseball officials.

“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 union said.

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“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.”

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, relentlessly attacked by Rodriguez and his camp during the year-long investigation into Anthony Bosch’s Biogenesis anti-aging clinic, also appeared on the program.

Manfred is the MLB representative on the three-person panel that heard Rodriguez’s appeal. Union executive Dave Prouty was the Players Association representative on the panel.

MLB officials later fired back, saying that they waited to respond to attacks on Selig and other baseball officials until after independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz hit Rodriguez with to 162 games on Saturday, reducing Selig’s original 211-game ban.

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“We have notified the Major League Baseball Players Association on numerous occasions that we intended to respond to all of the attacks on the integrity of our Joint Drug Program,” the MLB statement said.

Sabo, Robert/New York Daily News

Alex Rodriguez vows to fight the full-season ban imposed him.

“It is ironic that the MLBPA is complaining about MLB’s participation in this program given that Mr. Rodriguez’s lawyer is also participating in the show.

“As to Mr. Bosch’s appearance, he is not controlled by us and is entitled to speak however he chooses about his interactions with Mr. Rodriguez.”

Rodriguez and his legal advisors attacked the arbitration as unfair immediately after his 162-game suspension was announced on Saturday.

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“This is one man’s decision, that was not put before a fair and impartial jury, does not involve me having failed a single drug test, is at odds with the facts .. and relies on testimony and documents that would never have been allowed in any court in the United States because they are false and wholly unreliable,” Team A-Rod said in a statement.

Bosch told “60 Minutes” Scott Pelley that he provided Rodriguez with a wide variety of banned drugs and that he sometimes injected the third baseman with PEDs. He said he once drew A-Rod’s blood in the bathroom stall of a crowded nightclub.

MLB officials have largely remained silent since the Biogenesis scandal exploded one year ago, even as Rodriguez and his legal team accused Manfred, Selig and other baseball officials of engaging in unethical and illegal behavior as investigators gathered evidence against the embattled Yankee.

Rodriguez is believed to have behind behind a full-page ad by Hispanics Across America in The New York Times on Oct. 18 that accused commissioner Bud Selig of turning a blind eye to steroid abuse and called him “a disgrace to the game, to the players and to our children.” Times blogger Jay Schreiber wrote in October that the ad might have cost “upwards of $ 100,000.”

Rodriguez and his attorney James McCarroll also attacked Selig on Mike Francesa’s radio show in November after Rodriguez stormed out of his grievance after independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz ruled the commissioner did not have to testify, saying that the 79-year-old did not have the courage to face him.

During the interview, Rodriguez referred to Selig as “the man from Milwaukee” and accused the commissioner of “trying to destroy him.”

“He hates me,” Rodriguez said.