Let's assume the worst of what Alex Rodriguez and his camp are claiming is not conspiracy theory, but gospel.
Let's say the Yankees have worked nefariously to keep him off the field for insurance money or to concoct a way to void as much of his remaining contract as possible.
Let's say MLB has a personal vendetta against Rodriguez and is going after him with a sound and fury far more intense and vicious and vindictive than anyone else it has ever pursued — Shoeless Joe and Pete Rose, included.
Fine.
What does that have to do with Alex Rodriguez taking steroids? What does that have to do with him impeding MLB's investigation into whether he took those steroids or not?
A-Rod's case right now feels like this — these guys have been mean to me, they are horrible people and you should be rooting for me, the $275 million underdog, against these conspiring entities.
But what we are not hearing from the A-Rod camp is that he did not take the illegal performance enhancers. He hired a stable of private investigators and word is they have a bunch of information that would embarrass MLB and the Yankees. However, there has been nothing offered from that side — nothing — to counter MLB's allegations Rodriguez worked diligently to impede MLB bloodhounds from investigating the case.
Even if the Yankees and MLB were acting in the worst ways and in concert, that doesn't make Rodriguez innocent of what he is being charged. I have had this feeling all along the A-Rod camp is trying to distract and muddy the waters, to put MLB and the Yankees on trial and forget who is actually on trial here — and for what.
I have been working on this story for weeks and I have heard theories expounded by the A-Rod camp that have had everything but Yankees officials and MLB executives high-fiving Lee Harvey Oswald on a grassy knoll. And I will not discredit them. I am sure the Yankees want out of the contract. I am sure MLB wants A-Rod out of the game.
But the suspension that is going to be announced either today or tomorrow is about PED use. It is about obstructing the investigation. In all the theories expressed none can explain that away — unless Rodriguez is innocent. Unless he has not touched a PED since 2009. Since this has not been the brunt of his defense then MLB's claim it has scores of text messages and other evidence detailing his usage feels stronger.
And then multiple sources confirmed to The Post yesterday A-Rod, through the union, reached out to MLB to talk settlement yesterday and personally called Yankees officials to discuss working out a settlement on the remaining amount of his contract. Does an innocent man do that at the eleventh hour? Not even a half a day after he sat at a press conference in Trenton, N.J., and claimed those two entities — MLB and the Yankees — were conspiring to go after his contract? Again, go after his contract. His money. What does that have to do with the steroids in his body?
Needless to say, both MLB and the Yankees refused to engage in the discussions. MLB is planning on announcing today or more likely tomorrow that A-Rod will be suspended the rest of this season and all of next year. The A-Rod camp has indicated they are fighting until the end. But an appeal not only allows Rodriguez to espouse all of his theories. It will potentially open A-Rod up to, among other things, just what his association was to discredited steroid peddler Anthony Galea. In other words, Rodriguez could be making his life a lot worse, not better.
So it is possible one of the great careers ever is ending this way. Playing at Double-A, throwing out conspiracy theories. But not talking about whether he has continued to use steroids since 2009, when at a press conference admitting prior use he asked to be judged from that day forward.
He should understand how this judgment will work. Even if the Yankees are after his contract and MLB is after his profession and they are doing it in unholy cahoots, the ongoing trial is about whether Alex Rodriguez used PEDS these last few years and then tried to impede an investigation seeking to prove that.
The Yankees could be guilty. So could MLB. That doesn't make A-Rod innocent.
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