Schadenfreude 173 (A Continuing Series)

The Yankees will have to finish in fifth place without Slappy McBluelips.

Daily News:

Alex Rodriguez, once Major League Baseball's biggest star, was slammed Saturday with an historic drug suspension that encompasses all of the 2014 season, including the postseason, and will cost the Yankee third baseman $25 million in this year's salary, plus millions in any performance incentives he would have earned. ...

Arbitrator Fredric Horowitz struck the 14-time All-Star and three-time Most Valuable Player with the 162-game suspension, plus the offseason, in an endorsement of MLB's accusations that Rodriguez scored an array of PEDs from Biogenesis, a now-shuttered Miami-area anti-aging clinic operated by Anthony Bosch, in clear violation of the game’s collectively bargained drug program.

Rodriguez announced the suspension -- the longest drug suspension in the history of the program -- Saturday morning in a long statement in which he denied having used performance-enhancing drugs in the period in question and calling the ruling an "injustice" and vowing to take the fight to federal court. ...

Now it looks likely that the 38-year-old third baseman will be near 40 by the time he is allowed back on the field, assuming his health allows him to return. The Yankees still owe him about $84 million -- minus the 2014 salary -- on a contract that doesn't expire for four and a half more seasons but Rodriguez has endured two hip surgeries in the last five years, including one last January, and is markedly diminished as a player.

Yeah, right. The postseason!