A-Rod could go to federal court before fighting his suspension in arbitration

Steven Marcus of Newsday reported over the weekend that Alex Rodriguez’s appeal of his 211-game suspension will begin this week, at least preliminarily, with a status conference. He tweets today, however, that A-Rod’s team is considering other options before sitting down for an arbitration with Major League Baseball:

A-ROD: His camp looking at legal options in federal court even before arbitration, source says.

— steven marcus (@newsdaymarcus) September 3, 2013

This isn’t necessarily surprising. As we saw with the NFL bounty case, a person with little to lose — and given the length of A-Rod’s suspension he has little to lose — can possibly make some headway against his suspension by doing an end-run around league discipline and going to court. I’m not sure what sort of theory A-Rod could advance in court — maybe saying that Bud Selig violated the Collective Bargaining Agreement in leveling the discipline that he did — but it’s quite possible that this is a means of putting pressure on the league to come back to the table and try to negotiate a lighter suspension.

Meanwhile, the Yankees, thanks in part to Rodriguez, are still in the wild card hunt. Which has to be driving Selig absolutely nuts.

The World Series champion Red Sox are scheduled to visit President Trump in the White House on February 15. Some have speculated that manager Álex Cora, who is from Puerto Rico and has been critical of Trump and has been a big factor in Hurricane Maria relief efforts, might not go as a form of protest. Thus far, nothing concrete has been reported on that front.

However, third baseman Rafael Devers says he isn’t going to join the Red Sox on their visit to the White House, Evan Drellich of NBC Sports Boston reports. Devers would prefer to focus on baseball, as the Red Sox open spring training on February 13 and position players have to report on February 17. Per Chris Mason, Devers also said via a translator, “The opportunity was presented and I just wasn’t compelled to go.”

Devers hails from the Dominican Republic and he, like many of Major League Baseball’s foreign-born player base, might not be happy about Trump’s immigration policies. Understandably, he is being tight-lipped about his motivation, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Devers is making a silent protest by choosing not to attend. He is thus far the only member of the team to bow out.

Devers, 22, hit .240/.298/.433 with 21 home runs, 66 RBI, and 59 runs scored in 490 plate appearances last season.

Last year, when the Astros visited Trump at the White House, they did so without Carlos Correa and Carlos Beltrán. Both are from Puerto Rico. It is certainly not unprecedented for individual players to opt out of the White House visit.

No word yet on what food will be served during Boston’s trip to the nation’s capital, but the smart money is on hamberders.

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