New York: Alex Rodriguez should not expect a warm welcome back from fans or team mates after refusing to take his punishment and appealing his 211 game doping suspension, the head of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) said yesterday.
After Major League Baseball (MLB) handed out 13 doping penalties rocking ballparks from New York to San Diego, USADA chief Travis Tygart said there was a growing sense that the tide had turned in favor of clean athletes and that Rodriguez, baseball’s highest paid player, would eventually pay the price for his cheating.
While all the other players caught in the MLB’s Biogenesis drug sweep accepted their lesser penalties, a defiant Rodriguez was preparing to make his season debut with the Yankees on Monday against the Chicago White Sox having recovered from hip surgery.
Tygart blasted Rodriguez for his selfishness, saying his presence on the field was an insult to clean players everywhere.
“He (Rodriguez) ought to take the responsibility, do the time that he is ultimately given and do what’s right for baseball now,” Tygart said. “Instead he is dragging it out, creating chaos around him.
“Now that he is healthy enough to play it is just going to frustrate clean athletes and while he wants to call his team mates his brothers and that stuff, they’re not happy.
“The decision to dope is a very self-centered decision, to cheat and you hope you don’t get caught.”
He added: “Now playing while you appeal to me, is just another selfish decision on par with the decision to dope.” REUTERS
