No Punishment Coming for Arod

According to Michael S. Schmidt of the NY Times, Major League Baseball has finished its investigation into whether or not Alex Rodriguez lied about performance enhancing drugs and have decided that no punishments will be necessary for the tainted slugger.

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As part of the investigation, baseball investigators interviewed Angel Presinal, a Dominican trainer who has been barred from major league clubhouses since 2002 after being linked to an incident involving performance-enhancing drugs. The interview of Presinal, who has trained Rodriguez and dozens of major league players, yielded little information about Rodriguez’s possible use of banned substances.

The New York Times reported in May that members of baseball’s department of investigations had contacted Selena Roberts, the author of “A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez,” and several of Rodriguez’s associates to determine whether Rodriguez had used performance-enhancing drugs for a longer period than he admitted.

The investigation began shortly after Rodriguez met with the investigators and baseball’s top labor lawyer, Rob Manfred, in March to question him after it was revealed that he had tested positive for steroids. He subsequently admitted publicly that he used a substance he referred to as “boli” from 2001 to 2003. In the meeting with the baseball officials, Rodriguez reiterated that he used boli from 2001 to 2003 and said that he had never received substances from Presinal.

Concerns about the truthfulness of Rodriguez’s statements grew in the commissioner’s office in April, after Roberts’s book was published. It contained assertions that Rodriguez used several different steroids under the supervision of Presinal and had human growth hormone in his possession in 2004.

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It’s not really surprising to hear this news as there was little chance that he would have been suspended for something he had done years before. This does make me wonder how often MLB checks into whether or not players lied about using steroids.

Even still, it’s good to hear that there will be nothing coming down on him. I’m sure that’s got to be a relief to him.