Absence of Trust Fuels Yankees’ Melodrama

 

 As the Yankees dressed for batting practice Tuesday, a television in the visitors’ clubhouse at Rangers Ballpark blared the latest report of distress between the Yankees and Alex Rodriguez, their $275 million faded star.

“Why is this so loud?” pitcher Phil Hughes said.

The noise surrounding Rodriguez has become deafening over the past month, an unwelcome soundtrack for a season of flagging expectations. The Yankees have fallen into fourth place, six and a half games behind the first-place Red Sox. The din is expected to intensify as the Yankees are forced to figure out what do with Rodriguez, a player who is still owed nearly $100 million, who is challenging the team doctor’s medical judgment, and who is a target of Major League Baseball’s investigation into performance-enhancing drugs.

This unusual melodrama, sometimes bordering on farce, is fueled by increasing distrust and animosity. Most immediately, the team and the player once regarded as the game’s best are feuding over whether Rodriguez’s left quadriceps muscle is healthy.

Rodriguez wants to play now and does not trust the Yankees’ medical evaluations, according to two people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Yankees are making him wait at least another week.

After a tense conference call with all the parties Thursday afternoon, including Rodriguez’s lawyer, Rodriguez grudgingly agreed that he would play in a simulated or minor league game on Aug. 1 and could return to the team a day or two later.

It may have been the first conference call in baseball history in which the player’s lawyer participated in a discussion about a mild thigh injury. But the presence of Rodriguez’s lawyer on the call is only one indication of the level of distrust that exists.

The Yankees are considering disciplinary action against Rodriguez — most likely a fine — according to a team official who asked not to be named because he was not permitted to speak publicly on the matter. They will charge that Rodriguez violated the collective bargaining agreement when he sought a second opinion for his quadriceps injury. Rodriguez could respond by filing a grievance.

“I would not comment,” General Manager Brian Cashman said Thursday regarding a possible team-imposed penalty for Rodriguez.

The most recent chapter of this saga began Sunday, when Rodriguez was on the verge of being activated after 19 days of playing in the minor leagues to rehabilitate his surgically repaired hip. Rodriguez had complained the night before of tightness in his quad and said he could not play third base but could bat.

So the Yankees sent him to New York on Sunday night to have a magnetic resonance imaging test and see the team physician Dr. Christopher Ahmad. Rodriguez, sensing a conspiracy to keep him from playing Monday as scheduled, found the urgent timing of the M.R.I. suspicious. The Yankees steadfastly deny they are blocking Rodriguez from returning.

“The hope on the Yankees’ end has always been to have Alex back as soon as possible,” Cashman said.

Dr. Ahmad diagnosed a Grade 1 strain, and Rodriguez was told to rest for about a week, similar to Ahmad’s recommendation for Derek Jeter, who is recovering from a similar injury.

According to one of the officials, Rodriguez called the Yankees’ president, Randy Levine, at home late Tuesday night and told him that he did not trust the Yankees’ physician, Dr. Ahmad, and had sought a second opinion. He did not mention the name of the doctor. It was left that they would discuss the matter further Wednesday, the official said. That morning, Levine and Cashman called the Yankees’ trainer at their minor league facility in Tampa, Fla., where Rodriguez is rehabilitating.

The trainer, Tim Lentych, has been helping Rodriguez in his rehabilitation from his off-season hip operation. Cashman and Levine told Lentych to get Rodriguez on the phone, but Rodriguez said he was busy with his workout, the official said. Lentych told Cashman and Levine that he informed Rodriguez to call them back. He never did. Later that afternoon, Rodriguez had an orthopedist, Dr. Michael Gross, the chief of sports medicine at the Hackensack University Medical Center, speak on his behalf in a series of interviews with the news media, saying that he had examined the M.R.I. of Rodriguez’s quad muscle and saw no injury.

The Yankees were outraged. It was the second time Rodriguez had made a public declaration about his readiness to play without their approval. They later issued an unusual and terse statement, referring to Rodriguez as “Mr. Rodriguez.”

Rodriguez issued a statement Thursday saying there was miscommunication between him and the Yankees, referring to the phone calls Tuesday night and Wednesday.

“I think the Yankees and I crossed signals,” he said. “I don’t want any more mix-ups. I’m excited and ready to play and help this team win a championship. I feel great, and I’m ready and want to be in the lineup Friday night. Enough doctors, let’s play.”

The Yankees’ anger Wednesday quickly turned to amusement when it was discovered that Gross had received a formal reprimand from the state of New Jersey’s board of medical examiners for failing to adequately ensure proper treatment involving the prescription of hormones, including steroids, at his medical center.

Rodriguez was growing anxious to play and had told associates that he could not understand why Jeter, who is recovering from the same injury, was allowed to rehabilitate with the team while he was not.

On Thursday afternoon, Rodriguez went on WFAN and was asked by the host Mike Francesa if he trusted the Yankees.

“I’d rather not get into that,” Rodriguez said. “I’m just frustrated I’m not on the field today.”

But he must wait at least a week. In the meantime, it is possible that the league will punish him as a result of its investigation into performance-enhancing drugs. The Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun accepted a 65-game suspension without pay Monday; Rodriguez’s ban could be longer.

Rodriguez has declared his innocence, and people close to him say he believes the league’s investigators are relying on fabricated evidence. If Rodriguez appeals a suspension, the players union is duty bound to defend him. They could also persuade him to negotiate for a lower penalty, as Braun apparently did.

Meanwhile, the other Yankees players trudge on, aware that the blaring noise may not end soon.