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Yankee officials have told Alex Rodriguez that Yuri Sucart, believed to be the cousin who injected Major League Baseball’s biggest star with steroids, is no longer welcome at team facilities or hotels.
Baseball sources told the Daily News Thursday that the Yankees’ front office issued the ban after Rodriguez was seen jumping into an SUV driven by Sucart after Wednesday’s spring training opener against the Toronto Blue Jays in Dunedin, Fla.
Rodriguez did not protest the decision, after he was told that Sucart, who serves as the star’s driver and go-fer, would no longer be given access to clubhouses, training rooms and other team facilities.
He acknowledged that it was a problem, one source said.
During his Feb. 17 press conference at Steinbrenner Field, Rodriguez said a cousin had secured an over-the-counter, performance-enhancing drug he called boli in the Dominican Republic and injected him with it from 2001 to 2003. Rodriguez declined to name the cousin at the press conference, but he was later identified in media reports as Sucart.
Sports Illustrated reported earlier this month that Rodriguez tested positive for testosterone and Primobolan during MLB’s 2003 survey testing year. Primobolan is not available over the counter in the Dominican Republic and must be obtained from a doctor’s prescription or on the black market.
The Daily News reported last week that controversial trainer Angel Presinal also traveled with Rodriguez during the 2007 season, often sharing a hotel room with Sucart. Rodriguez won the American League’s MVP award that year.
The News reported that Rodriguez was careful not to be seen in public with Presinal, who was banned by Major League Baseball from big league clubhouses following a 2002 incident in Toronto linking him to a gym bag filled with steroids and syringes.
Rodriguez is expected to meet with MLB investigators Thursday or Friday in
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The price of watching a fraction of Yankees games dropped to a fraction of its original cost yesterday, with obstructed-view bleacher seats abruptly falling from $12 per game to $5.
Lonn Trost, the team’s chief operating officer, made the announcement during an interview on WFAN. The ticket price applies to about 600 seats on either side of a sports bar that extends to the centerfield wall.
“Those seats are being sold at $5, not $12,” he said. “I think some seats may have gone out improperly invoiced. Those are going to be corrected, but those 600 seats are going to be $5.”
Trost was not asked about the timing or rationale for the change and did not return a call seeking further explanation.
In an interview with Newsday Monday, he said of the obstructed-view seats, “We had a choice of selling it to somebody or not. … For $12, it’s a choice of taking it or not.”
The seating chart on the Yankees’ Web site also indicated those seats cost $12.
Holders of $5 tickets will have access to other parts of the stadium. Trost told WFAN the tickets would be labeled as having obstructed views.
“When we built the sports bar we knew architecturally there is an architectural shadow,” he said. “And that means there are a group of seats that are in the bleachers that if you are sitting very close to either the rightfield or leftfield side of the sports bar, you may not see the opposite side.
“We knew that going in, and to that extent we pre-prepared to put televisions in the wall, as well as that big screen so you don’t miss anything.”
Trost also said the team will open its most expensive seats - of which only about 70 percent have been sold - to partial season plans. He suggested those tickets might have been priced lower if the process had been concluded after the worst of the economic downturn.
“We certainly would have considered the economy, and that’s why some of the seats, we recognize, haven’t been sold,” he said.
Trost said he believes in some cases companies or individuals that can afford premium seats have not purchased them for fear simply of being seen in them during the current economic malaise.
He said the Yankees have sold all but “parts of seven” suites out of 51, some of which will be sold on a “per diem” basis for companies that do not want full season suite plans
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The big question surrounding Alex Rodriguez this spring and into the season promises to be how he will handle the negative reaction from the fans and media as he travels around the country. The fans today, with their various “A-Roid” taunts, didn’t seem to phase him much. In fact, they only seem to make him a little angry.
And you know what happens when Rodriguez gets angry.
He hits a two run laser beam to left field off of Jays reliever Ricky Romero that seemed to be still on the rise when it cleared the fence.
“It was just a fastball I left up and he’s a great hitter,” Romero said. “He’s going to hit mistakes and I made a mistake. I was just trying to be aggressive.”
A-Rod got a mixed reaction from the crowd. Not surprising since the crowd was largely Yankee fans and the folks here in Dunedin can hardly be described as mean-spirited. Still, there were some jeers and heckles, surprisingly, the loudest coming from a fan in a Paul O’Neill jersey.
But none of that mattered as the Yankees spoiled the Blue Jay’s Grapefruit League opener 6-1 on a beautiful early spring day along Florida’s Gulf Coast.
“This is what I do. I know how to play baseball,” Rodriguez said. “I just hope that the start of something really special for this year. I feel really good about our team.”
Centerfield prospect Brett Gardner led off the game with a homerun off of the third pitch of the game and Todd Linden and Juan Miranda each collected an RBI single in the victory.
None of the runs were more emphatic than the blast by Rodriguez.
“We weren’t quite sure what it would be like today. It was a mixture of both,” Yankees skipper Joe Girardi said. “We talked a little bit about today. Told him, we’re with you the whole way. We’re going to be here no matter what happens. I can’t pretend to know what’s like to be in Alex’s shoes. I’m sure some places will be easier than others. Some will be harsher than others. When it’s 40-, 50,000 fans, the volume is probably going to be a little bit louder one way or the other. ”
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Former major leaguer Jim Leyritz was arrested and jailed Friday after a judge revoked his bond for violating his pretrial release on a DUI manslaughter charge, authorities said.Prosecutors filed a motion earlier in the week in Fort Lauderdale seeking to have Leyritz jailed as he awaits trial.
Authorities say a system in Leyritz’s car that he has to blow in before starting it, and periodically while driving, recorded that he consumed alcohol four times since the device was installed in April 2008. He is not allowed to drink alcohol under the terms of his release.
Leyritz’s trial is tentatively set for May 25. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison. He has pleaded not guilty.
His attorney, J. David Bogenschutz, said Friday his client’s arrest stems from a misunderstanding. He filed a motion Friday afternoon seeking to have Leyritz released pending an emergency hearing.
Bogenschutz said that as part of Leyritz’s pretrial release, he initially had to submit to multiple daily alcohol tests on a home device. That order was changed in April 2008, allowing Leyritz to drive but only if the breath device was installed in his vehicle.
At that point, according to Bogenschutz, officers charged with monitoring Leyritz told him they would no longer be supervising him.
“So he believed at that point, because he now had a machine in his car, it was OK to drink, but that he’s just not going to be able to drink and drive because the car is going to turn off,” Bogenschutz said.
Bogenschutz said Leyritz has used the vehicle breath device some 4,000 times with only four registered alcohol incidents. He said that since the latest incident in January, authorities have made it clear to Leyritz that he is still not allowed to consume any alcohol — and Leyritz hasn’t.
“He really shouldn’t be held responsible,” Bogenschutz said. “It’s a little disturbing.”
Ron Ishoy, a spokesman for prosecutors, acknowledged that officers in charge of supervising Leyritz assumed his monitoring had concluded in April when the device was installed in his vehicle.
“That assumption was incorrect,” Ishoy said Friday. “It is the state’s position that Mr. Leyritz was to remain on pretrial release and not consume alcohol.”
Authorities said Leyritz was drunk on Dec. 28, 2007, when he ran a red light in his sport utility vehicle in Fort Lauderdale and crashed into another car, killing 30-year-old Fredia Ann Veitch.
Authorities said toxicology reports indicated that Leyritz’s blood-alcohol level three hours after the crash was 0.14 percent. The reports also indicated that Veitch, too, was drunk, with a blood-alcohol level of 0.18. Florida’s legal limit is 0.08.
The 45-year-old played for six major league teams and last was in the majors in 2000, ending his 11-year career. In 1996, he homered for the New York Yankees in Game 4 of the World Series against Atlanta. The homer made it 6-6, and the Yankees won in 10 innings. New York took the series in six games for its first title in 18 years.
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