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It looks like Alex Rodriguez is now officially at war with everyone. He's suing MLB, the Yankees team doctor, and now it turns out that he asked the MLBPA back in August to stop representing him during his appeal hearing. His lawyers sent a letter to the union telling them that they didn't have A-Rod's best interest in mind. According to a New York Times article:
The letter argued that the players association had missed opportunities to challenge baseball officials' aggressive investigative tactics; that the union had not strongly enough condemned baseball's "gratuitous leaks" to the news media; and, most pointedly, that Michael Weiner, the union's executive director, had publicly compromised Rodriguez's position in a radio interview when he signaled that Rodriguez should have accepted some type of suspension "based on the evidence we saw." Rodriguez and his personal lawyers have steadfastly maintained that Rodriguez should not have been suspended.
Publicly agreeing that A-Rod has done something wrong, while could be the truth, is generally not the best way to defend your client and, by extension, the entire union. It's of the Union's opinion that he should simply not have been given such an extensive punishment, rather than be declared innocent. Rodriguez obviously doesn't want to suffer any punishment, so distancing himself from Weiner and the settlement the MLBPA would likely be in favor of makes sense for him.
Whatever the intention, the letter proved to be ineffective, as David Prouty, the man the letter was addressed to, has been present on the arbitration panel along with MLB COO Robert Manfred and independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz.
The hearing will continue into at least mid-October, though it's possible a decision won't be announced until after the World Series.