If anyone deserves to be mad, surely it’s the face of Yankees fellow AL East rival Tampa Bay Rays, Evan Longoria.
Longoria did a podcast interview with SI and let his feelings be known on what he thinks about Arod being allowed to play through his suspension:
I don’t think it’s fair for the other teams, because I’m in the American League East. Whether he is 100 percent or not, whether his mind is where it needs to be or not, he can affect the game in a positive way. He can affect the game in a tremendous way, which is being in the lineup. In a pennant race, he’s a guy you don’t want in the lineup. Looking at it from that perspective and that perspective only, I don’t think it’s fair that we can’t have an arbitrator hear the case sooner.
If you get in a bench clearing brawl and a guy punches another guy and is ejected from the game and gets a 10-game suspension, you appeal that and it’s heard in the next three weeks. You either get 10 games or six games or whatever. I don’t understand why that process can’t happen for this.
Longoria’s anger is understandable, but one could say so is Arod’s right to appeal, which he has all the right to.
It’s an ugly situation overall and the positive is that more and more players are coming out to condemn other players for using instead of staying mum.
The sport still has a ways to go before it’s completely clean.