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Rodriguez Believed to Be Behind Purchase of Clinic Documents Yankees’ Rodriguez Tied to Clinic Records Purchase
(about 3 hours later)
Investigators for Major League Baseball have uncovered what they believe is evidence that a representative of Alex Rodriguez purchased medical records from a person connected to a South Florida anti-aging clinic that is suspected of providing performance-enhancing drugs to a number of major leaguers, according to two people briefed on the matter. Former employees of a now-shuttered South Florida anti-aging clinic and others who had ties to it have told Major League Baseball that the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez arranged to purchase documents from the clinic to keep them out of baseball’s hands, according to two people briefed on the matter.
The New York Times reported online Thursday that Major League Baseball had purchased documents from a former employee at the clinic, which operated under the name Biogenesis of America and is now closed, in an effort to uncover evidence that would link the clinic to the distribution of performance-enhancing drugs. The article also stated that one major league player had also purchased clinic documents from a former clinic employee so that they could be destroyed. That player was not identified until Friday, when the two people said it was Rodriguez, the 37-year-old Yankees third baseman currently rehabilitating from off-season hip surgery. The assertions about Rodriguez’s activities were conveyed to baseball through investigators who have been in Florida since last summer as they try to establish if the clinic was providing performance-enhancing drugs to major leaguers, including Rodriguez, 37, a slugger who is still recovering from off-season hip surgery and has yet to play in 2013.
A spokesman for Rodriguez flatly denied the accusation Friday. The two people said that the investigators were told by the ex-employees and others that documents said to be from the clinic had been put up for sale by various people and that Rodriguez had arranged for an intermediary to purchase at least some of them.
In January, a weekly newspaper, Miami New Times, reported that it had obtained medical records from the clinic that tied half a dozen players — Rodriguez, Melky Cabrera, Gio Gonzalez, Bartolo Colon, Nelson Cruz and Yasmani Grandal — to the use of banned substances like human growth hormone. That, in turn, led Major League Baseball to conclude that other players linked to the clinic would also attempt to buy documents to conceal incriminating evidence and accelerated baseball’s efforts to purchase as many documents as it could.
More records then emerged that tied other players, including Ryan Braun, to the clinic. In turn, many of the named players, including Rodriguez and Braun, denied obtaining any banned substances from the clinic. A spokesman for Rodriguez denied on Friday that his client had arranged to acquire any documents.
Rodriguez is halfway through a 10-year, $275 million contract — the largest ever in American sports — but is still owed $114 million through the end of 2017. He missed all of spring training and is unlikely to return to action until the second half of the season, assuming his rehabilitation proceeds as planned.  From baseball’s point of view, a cat-and-mouse game has now emerged with the clinic, and Rodriguez, in the middle. Since admitting several years ago to using performance enhancers in the early part of last decade, when he was playing for the Texas Rangers, Rodriguez has had to meet with baseball’s investigators on several occasions as new allegations have periodically emerged linking him to drug use.
But his alleged link to the anti-aging clinic has created other uncertainties about his status for 2013. If Major League Baseball ultimately concluded that Rodriguez, despite his denials, had connections to the clinic that involved the use of performance-enhancing drugs, it could attempt to suspend him for portions of this season. Rodriguez, in those meetings with baseball officials, has consistently denied using performance enhancers after he left the Rangers. Investigators for baseball have on several occasions asked federal authorities involved in drug investigations to provide them with information about Rodriguez, but those requests have not been successful.
Now Major League Baseball finds itself with the belief that Rodriguez bought documents to keep the sport from getting a full picture of his links to the clinic. But there are an untold number of documents swirling around, and questions about what they actually show and how they would be authenticated. Major League Baseball may ultimately choose to focus on testimony it has obtained from a number of the clinic’s former employees rather than on the documents if it proceeds with efforts to discipline Rodriguez or other players, one of the two people said.
Those ex-employees were paid for the time they spent talking with baseball’s investigators, the two people said, with the payments not believed to have exceeded several thousand dollars. Whether their statements alone are strong enough for baseball officials to y proceed with disciplinary action against various players remains to be seen.
In its decade-long effort to rid the sport of performance enhancers — an effort that has included a wider range and number of drug tests and increasingly heavy penalties — baseball officials have still found it extremely difficult to suspend a player in the absence of a positive drug test.
And that is still the hurdle the sport faces even as it has taken the unusual step of paying for evidence and even as it contemplates what penalties would be called for if it could establish that Rodriguez bought documents in order to conceal them.
As for Rodriguez, he is now halfway through a 10-year, $275 million contract — the largest ever in American sports — and is owed $114 million through the end of 2017. He missed all of spring training and is unlikely to return to action until the second half of the season, assuming his rehabilitation proceeds as planned.
But accusations that link him to the anti-aging clinic, and the new assertions about the purchase of documents, have created still more uncertainties about his status for 2013. Concerns about the anti-aging clinic first emerged in January, when a weekly newspaper, Miami New Times, reported that it had obtained medical records from the facility that tied half a dozen players — Rodriguez, Melky Cabrera, Gio Gonzalez, Bartolo Colon, Nelson Cruz and Yasmani Grandal — to the use of banned substances like human growth hormone.
More records emerged that tied other players, including the slugger Ryan Braun, to the clinic. Many of the named players, including Rodriguez and Braun, denied obtaining any banned substances from the clinic.