Mark Cuban tends to have opinions on things, and when it comes to Alex Rodriguez and the Biogenesis scandal, it’s no different.
The Dallas Mavericks owner was a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Thursday, and he was asked about the 211-game suspension — which the Yankees third baseman is appealing — that Rodriguez was handed Monday. Characteristically, Cuban used it as a jumping-off point to offer not only his thoughts on the suspension, but his general opinions on Major League Baseball and commissioner Bud Selig, who he seems to have a bit of a checkered past with.
“Horrible,” Cuban said of Rodriguez’s suspension. “I think it’s disgraceful what Major League Baseball is trying to do to him. Look, it’s not that he doesn’t deserve to be suspended. He does. They have policies in place: A first-time offender is 50 games, and a second time is 100. [Two hundred and eleven games], that’s personal.”
Cuban’s comments aren’t necessarily surprising given his history with MLB. In 2008, he put in a bid for $1.3 billion to buy the Cubs, but was denied. In 2009, he tried again with the Rangers as he placed a bid upwards of $600 million, but was rejected a second time.
His latest comments probably won’t help him if he tries buying a team for a third time.
“I’ve got to tell you, with my experiences with Major League Baseball — and after all of this, there’s no chance I’m getting to buy a team — it’s basically become Bud Selig’s mafia,” Cuban said. “He runs it the way he wants to run it. They don’t want me to own a team. When I was trying the buy the Rangers, even after the Cubs, when I was trying to buy the Texas Rangers, it was an open option.
“I sat in there with my good, hard-earned money trying to bid, and they did everything possible to keep me from buying the team. They had lawyers in there trying to change the rules; they had people trying to put up more money. It was horrible.”
