Alex Rodriguez has a point.

The Yan­kee third base­man, who is appeal­ing his 211-game sus­pen­sion for sus­pect­ed use of per­for­mance-enhanc­ing sub­stances, stormed out of an arbi­tra­tion hear­ing last week and onto a New York sports radio pro­gram, where he deliv­ered a ram­bling, self-serv­ing and emo­tion­al screed against the pro­ceed­ings and the man who ordered his sus­pen­sion, Major League Base­ball Com­mis­sion­er Allan Huber (Bud) Selig. A‑Rod is angry that Selig did not appear at the pro­ceed­ings and go under oath.

A‑Rod is right about one thing: Bud Selig has a lot of explain­ing to do.

That’s not to defend him or to agree that Selig should have been made to tes­ti­fy at the arbi­tra­tion hear­ing.  The pro­ceed­ings are gov­erned by a col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment between own­ers and play­ers.  Rodriguez is alone in insist­ing that the Com­mis­sion­er him­self, rather than his Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer, tes­ti­fy.  In its state­ment, the play­ers union said that it “respect­ful­ly disagree[d] with the arbi­tra­tor’s rul­ing” against requir­ing Selig to appear, but “will abide by it,” dis­tanc­ing itself from the Rodriguez tantrum.  Although Fred­er­ic Horowitz, the arbi­tra­tor, isn’t expect­ed to issue his rul­ing until late next month or ear­ly next year, going AWOL with­out sub­mit­ting to ques­tion­ing was rather a dra­mat­ic way for A‑Rod to con­cede that his cause was lost.  It was a cal­cu­lat­ed act of desperation.

A‑Rod has fur­ther cement­ed his sta­tus as an object of ridicule.  His skills fad­ing, his body fail­ing, his rep­u­ta­tion for­ev­er ruined, A‑Rod’s employ­ers are des­per­ate to get out from under a con­tract that oblig­es them to pay him $86 mil­lion over the next 4 sea­sons . A 211-game sus­pen­sion would save them rough­ly $30 mil­lion. For Yan­kees own­ers, that would be a good start. They don’t want to pay him anoth­er dime.

It was not always so. Rodriguez first won baseball’s biggest con­tract in 2000, when he bailed from the Seat­tle Mariners to sign a 10-year, $250 mil­lion con­tract with Texas. Four years lat­er, the Rangers swapped him to the Yan­kees.  In 2007, with sev­er­al years still remain­ing on his con­tract, the Yan­kees signed him to a new 10-year, $275 mil­lion pact that oblig­ates the team to pay him through the 2017 sea­son when he will turn 42.

Iron­i­cal­ly, it was baseball’s steroid scan­dal that land­ed him a con­tract that may be the worst in sports his­to­ry. At the time, a dis­graced Bar­ry Bonds, who was play­ing his final sea­son, had already bro­ken Hank Aaron’s record of 755 career home runs. To have Bonds hold two of the sport’s most revered records – most home runs in a sea­son and in a career – was galling to many fans and to the game’s over­lords.  The hope was that Rodriguez, the youngest play­er ever to hit 500 home runs, would sur­pass Bonds and dis­pel the odor of scan­dal from the record.  The Yan­kee orga­ni­za­tion was eager to have Rodriguez in pin­stripes when he set that record and was will­ing to over­pay for the opportunity.

But big salaries come with big expec­ta­tions and Rodriguez nev­er was able to sat­is­fy demand­ing Yan­kee fans.  Even when he slugged 54 homers in 2007, they com­plained that his con­tri­bu­tions were too often irrel­e­vant to the out­come of games.  Though he helped lead his team to a World Series cham­pi­onship in 2009, he did not win their hearts. And when his out­put plum­met­ed after 2010, they turned on him for good.  Few want to see him in a Yan­kee uni­form again.

For non-Yan­kee fans, the turn­ing point in their view of A‑Rod came in Feb­ru­ary 2009, when he admit­ted to hav­ing used steroids while still with the Texas Rangers.  The admis­sion had the weird­ness that we have come to expect with Rodriguez.  He blamed his Domini­can cousin and said that he used sub­stances that were legal and read­i­ly avail­able in his native coun­try.  He said he’d stopped using in 2003, some­thing he con­tin­ues to main­tain, how­ev­er implau­si­bly.  But the dam­age was done.  He no longer was the play­er who was going to break the all-time home run record with­out cheat­ing.  Indeed, his pro­duc­tion dropped so abrupt­ly that he would not threat­en the record at all.  The fans and the commissioner’s office had no more use for him.

A‑Rod may be forced to go away.  But he won’t leave qui­et­ly.  His fit of tem­per like­ly seals his sus­pen­sion, which he seems cer­tain to appeal to fed­er­al court.  He already has opened anoth­er legal front: he filed suit last month in New York Supreme Court, seek­ing dam­ages for what he alleges to be the Commissioner’s tor­tious inter­fer­ence with exist­ing con­tracts and prospec­tive busi­ness relationships.

Legal mer­its aside, the com­plaint speaks some incon­ve­nient truths about the base­ball com­mis­sion­er. It claims that Selig’s aggres­sive pur­suit of Rodriguez not only vio­lat­ed baseball’s col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment but was under­tak­en to “gloss over [his] past inac­tion and tac­it approval of the use of per­for­mance enhanc­ing sub­stances in base­ball” [para­graph 1].

The com­plaint accu­rate­ly describes Selig’s tenure as com­mis­sion­er as “scan­dal-rid­den” and “plagued by some of the most con­tentious and dam­ag­ing fail­ures in base­ball his­to­ry” [Para­graph 20]. Cit­ing one of a litany of Selig’s fias­coes, the com­plaint reminds the court that:

Mr. Selig presided over the 1994–1995 strike, which result­ed in the first can­cel­la­tion of a World Series since 1904. This 232 day strike caused sub­stan­tial dam­age to base­bal­l’s rep­u­ta­tion and result­ed in long-last­ing declines in game atten­dance and team rev­enue [Para­graph 20].

That blun­der, one among many that the com­plaint might have cit­ed, led Selig into a fail­ure that was even more stun­ning and one that has done the game last­ing dam­age: the steroid era.

In the after­math of the rep­u­ta­tion­al harm suf­fered by MLB as a result of the 1994 strike, base­ball was in des­per­ate need of a way to recon­nect fans with the game. This sal­va­tion came in 1998, in the form of the high­ly pub­lic com­pe­ti­tion between two MLB play­ers, Mark McG­wire and Sam­my Sosa, to break Roger Maris’s record of hit­ting 61 home runs in one sea­son. Under the rapt atten­tion of fans world­wide, both McG­wire and Sosa beat Maris’ record, hit­ting 71 and 66 home runs, respec­tive­ly [Para­graph 21].

Buoyed by steroid-pow­ered feats of Sosa and McG­wire, base­ball wel­comed an influx of fans and cash, with Selig assum­ing cred­it for the suc­cess.  But as with steroids them­selves, the sud­den rush of strength was fol­lowed by a longer and more debil­i­tat­ing decline.  When the “Gold­en Age of Base­ball” turned out to be the “Gold­en Age of Steroids” [Para­graph 22], the game’s rep­u­ta­tion soured.

So did Selig’s. His fail­ure to police the sport he over­saw prompt­ed Con­gress to call hearings.

To divert atten­tion from his own fail­ures, Selig took off after the game’s great­est asset – the play­ers them­selves. Under pres­sure from Con­gress, Selig enlist­ed for­mer Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader George Mitchell to under­take an inves­ti­ga­tion. The Mitchell report, as the com­plaint notes, “found ram­pant use of banned sub­stances through­out the game” [Para­graph 24].

More sig­nif­i­cant­ly, it named names, dozens of them, includ­ing those of some of the game’s biggest stars, con­vinc­ing fans that they’d been played for fools when they paid to wit­ness the accom­plish­ments of the game’s giants.  The report did its job.  The Mitchell report estab­lished the play­ers that had used steroids as the sole vil­lains. Hence­forth, every play­er who would have an out­stand­ing offen­sive sea­son would be sub­ject to whis­pers that he might be cheat­ing.  The bet­ter the play­er, the more per­sis­tent the sus­pi­cion.   The com­mis­sion­er, mean­while, avoid­ed sus­pi­cion.  The man who presided over the steroid era was off the hook.

Some mis­tak­en­ly believe that Mitchell con­duct­ed a thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion of the steroid scan­dal, includ­ing a detailed inquiry into the con­duct of Selig and the own­ers.  It did noth­ing of the sort. The report’s pri­ma­ry pur­pose was to deflect blame away from the com­mis­sion­er.  It was a “Report to the Com­mis­sion­er,” not an inves­ti­ga­tion of the com­mis­sion­er.  That was by design.  Mitchell’s law firm was hired by the commissioner’s office to pre­pare the report. Lawyers don’t inves­ti­gate their clients; they defend them.  Mitchell defend­ed Selig by attack­ing the play­ers.  It was an able defense.

Selig has nev­er gone under oath before an arbi­tra­tor, fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tors or a court. Con­gress has slapped him around a few times, but nev­er seri­ous­ly exam­ined the ques­tion of his com­plic­i­ty in a scan­dal that occurred under his nose.  We still don’t know what he knew or when he knew it.  No one has sub­poe­naed his emails or phone records, pored over inter­nal mem­o­ran­da, inter­viewed sub­or­di­nates or club own­ers who grant­ed club­house pass­es to steroid deal­ers (and, in some cas­es, employed them) and in whose work­places play­ers inject­ed one anoth­er with the sub­stances.  No one has under­tak­en a full inves­ti­ga­tion to deter­mine whether Selig was a wit­ting accom­plice in wide­spread cheat­ing or just anoth­er obtuse and incom­pe­tent executive.

That mat­ters because, while Rodriguez is respon­si­ble for his own integri­ty, Selig is respon­si­ble for the integri­ty of the game. His fail­ure has far greater con­se­quences. In that sense, Rodriguez’s tem­per tantrum is under­stand­able. Selig has been relent­less in destroy­ing his career and rep­u­ta­tion and that of oth­er play­ers, while pock­et­ing a report­ed annu­al salary of $18.4 mil­lion and nev­er being held account­able for his role in mar­ring the game’s integrity.

It is long past time for him to answer ques­tions under oath. The arbi­tra­tor wouldn’t do it, but if Rodriguez’s civ­il action against Selig or his court chal­lenge of the arbitrator’s rul­ing were to move for­ward, per­haps judges will.

It is time for the accuser to stand accused.