Rodriguez Isn't the Only One Who's Had Enough Alex Rodriguez walked out of his own arbitration hearing on Wednesday, saying that he was "disgusted with this abusive process" and that "the absurdity and injustice just became too much." Funny, that absurdity is exactly what many fans are lamenting right now. Through how much more of Rodriguez's latest drama are we going to have to suffer? The Yankees" season ended more than seven weeks ago, the postseason proceeded without them, the Red Sox won the World Series, and yet we're still talking about Rodriguez and his fight with Major League Baseball over his 211-game drug suspension. It's absurd that it has gone on this long, so much so that many of us want to get up and walk away, just as Rodriguez did. No other player in recent major league history has been in the news so much for off-the-field issues and antics. Drug-use admissions, drug-use denials, over-the-top contract negotiations, an endless parade of famous girlfriends. It's as if Rodriguez is so busy making himself the story that he doesn't leave anyone time to pay attention to the game that he says he loves so much. In 2007, as the Red Sox were about to capture their second World Series title in four seasons, he let it be known that he would opt out of his original contract with the Yankees, stealing headlines from the sport's biggest moment of the year. Two years later, he admitted to using steroids from 2001 to 2003, but only after Sports Illustrated had linked him to a positive drug test. He couldn't even recall exactly what drugs he had been taking, he said, but he assured us that he had been through quite an ordeal. Only a year later, his name was linked to the Canadian doctor Anthony Galea, who was accused of doling out banned drugs to athletes. Rodriguez denied, denied, denied being treated with any banned substances. In 2011, Major League Baseball investigated him for his involvement in illegal, underground poker games. Then, early in 2013, the Alex Rodriguez soap opera returned to prime time when he was connected to Biogenesis, the South Florida clinic that is at the heart of baseball's most recent drug cases. While other players involved in the Biogenesis case, including a former National League most valuable player, Ryan Braun, accepted their suspensions, we had to listen to the unrelenting cacophony of Rodriguez saying he had been unfairly accused. We even endured the indignity of watching him play for the Yankees in August and September, as he helped them stay in postseason contention while he appealed his suspension. And now this. On Wednesday, after he stamped out of his arbitration hearing, Rodriguez did a radio interview on WFAN in New York in which he vehemently denied using performance enhancers in recent years. The interviewer, Mike Francesa, asked if he had done "mountains of P.E.D.s," and Rodriguez answered no, adding that he was completely innocent of the charges in the current case. He said that Major League Baseball's tactics in investigating him had been underhanded, and declared that people had come up to him in droves to tell him that they were on his side. Never before has he received so much support, he said. He claimed that baseball had essentially been trying him in a kangaroo court, although his appeal is being heard by an arbitrator. He angrily asserted that he was being stripped of his rights and urged listeners to join his fight for justice. It's amazing, though, that he really expects the public to rally to his side after years of A-Rod-centric dramatics. Either he simply doesn't realize that the public may have problems lavishing compassion onto a man who is a proven liar and doper - as his 2009 doping confession showed - or he is trying to distract us from the truth. It's probably a lot of both. Barry Bonds was just as self-centered as Rodriguez, but probably not as clueless. When accusations of Bonds's drug use were swirling around the sport, he turned even surlier than he normally was. He growled; he glowered. It was almost as if he knew, deep inside, that people wouldn't buy his excuses and let him go on his merry way. So he initially didn't bother making them. But on Wednesday, Rodriguez again took his argument to the public. As one point in his WFAN interview, he even said, "Think about what I've been through." So I have. I thought of how much money he had made and his record-setting contracts, like the $275 million deal he signed with the Yankees after that infamous opt-out in 2007. I thought about how much he sounds like Lance Armstrong in his denials of drug use, particularly when he and his handlers use phrases like "witch hunt" and when they attack the original investigation to distract from its findings. And I thought about what he said on Wednesday, about being very embarrassed that his latest predicament was often making front-page news. If he were so embarrassed, he would take his millions, retire and spare his beloved game of any more injury to its image. Then I realized that he was right: This whole thing is disgusting, but just not the way he sees it. The worst thing in all this is that Rodriguez cannot even promise that the end is near. He could be slapped with a suspension of 100 more games, or maybe more. But his contract with the Yankees still has four years to run. "This can go on for the next seven years," he said. He'd probably love that.