A-Rod continues to rage against the MLB machine

This week's tawdry spectacle in New York, where Rodriguez has been fighting for his baseball life, might beg to be characterized as "rock bottom" for the would-be home run king.It was not stamped, as is the norm. When I had been given the visa, almost a month before my scheduled departure kayak trolley, I did not know what this meant.But considering that this circus will likely be transferring to federal court once arbiter Fredric Horowitz rules on Rodriguez's 211-game suspension some time in January, there's still the potential for much degradation to come.As orchestrated by his team of lawyers and P.R. handlers – brilliantly described by Yahoo's Jeff Passan as "the army of by-the-hour fix-it flacks with the sorts of fancy degrees he always wanted" – Rodriguez's outburst directly followed Horowitz's ruling that commissioner Bud Selig didn't have to testify. 

The fact that Team A-Rod had a statement ready almost immediately blasting MLB and the grievance process and concluding, "The absurdity and injustice just became too much,'' seemed way too convenient.We want Targa to be as big a part of their year mould usb sticks as it is of ours.Rodriguez then went on WFAN radio to continue his assault on Selig, declaring that his pursuit of Rodriguez "is 100 percent personal" and "he hates my guts."In a perverse way, it is a brilliant strategy. For one thing, it allowed Rodriguez to stake claim to the moral high ground, thus providing cover for his decision to abandon the hearing before having to take the stand himself.Second, it reframed the combatants as A-Rod versus Selig, which is a much fairer fight than A-Rod versus the full weight of MLB's anti-drug policy. I mean,Oversight has become unhinged in the current political system. It's not about solving problems, said Matthew Dull, an associate {$} professor at Virginia Tech's Center for Public Administration and Policy.Chefs Kitchen Knives the commish is not exactly Mr. Popularity amongst the sporting public. 

But there are a couple of problems likely to sink Rodriguez in the end. For one thing, the nexus of "Rodriguez" and "moral high ground" is pretty much an oxymoron. It's hard to believe there's any circumstance by which he'll get the sympathy vote, though Rodriguez told ESPNNewYork.com on Friday "I have never had a more positive reaction in the streets."This right after he asserted that his legal team "crushed it" in their closing arguments while MLB "had nothing."