HANNAH KEYSER: Major League Baseball
announced that Yankees pitcher Domingo German has been
suspended for 81 games in violation
of the domestic violence policy.
The ban is retroactive to last September,
when German was engaged in an altercation
with his girlfriend following a charity gala for CC Sabathia.
He's already served 18 games of the suspension.
That's the last nine games of the regular season,
plus the nine games that the Yankees played
in the postseason, which means that German
will miss the first 63 games of the 2020 season.
81 games is a half a season suspension.
This is the fourth longest suspension
overall under this policy, and it
is the longest suspension ever levied without formal charges.
There were no charges filed against German.
There wasn't even the police report.
And that eclipses Addison Russell's 40-game ban in 2018
without formal criminal charges.
This is an escalation.
These bans are not actually sort of precedent-based.
Major League Baseball is not a court of law.
And although we can't sort of ever
know what happened either that night
or in the investigation process, it
does look like Major League Baseball is overall getting
tougher on domestic violence.