Investigators for Major League Baseball created an improvised war room in the commissioner’s Park Avenue offices in Manhattan in recent months, mapping out potential evidence that would tie an anti-aging clinic in Coral Gables, Fla., to the possible use of performance-enhancing drugs by some of baseball’s more prominent players.
But because the investigators cannot compel witnesses to talk, they could do nothing more than scrutinize the clinic. As a result, they found themselves mere spectators Tuesday as a weekly Miami newspaper reported that it had obtained medical records from the clinic that tied a half-dozen players — Alex Rodriguez, Melky Cabrera, Gio Gonzalez, Bartolo Colon, Nelson Cruz and Yasmani Grandal — to the use of banned substances like human growth hormone.
The newspaper, Miami New Times, said it had received the records from a former employee of the clinic, which is now closed, and that they included handwritten notations listing various drugs that were reportedly distributed to various players. At least some of those documents were displayed online by the newspaper. However, the documents have not been independently authenticated, and Rodriguez, the Yankees slugger, and Gonzalez, a standout pitcher for the Washington Nationals, both issued statements denying they had been patients at the clinic.
Anthony Bosch, the operator of the clinic, known as Biogenesis of America, also issued a statement of denial through his lawyer, saying the Miami New Times article was “filled with inaccuracies, innuendos and misstatements in fact.”
“Mr. Bosch vehemently denies the assertions that MLB players such as Alex Rodriguez and Gio Gonzalez were treated or associated with him,” the statement added.
Nevertheless, despite the denials, Major League Baseball, long suspicious of the clinic’s actions, will continue to proceed in the belief that the assertions in the article have merit. Major League Baseball has been particularly curious about Rodriguez, who admitted in 2009 that he used performance enhancers from 2001 to 2003, but who has denied in several meetings with baseball’s investigators that he has done so since.
But what exactly baseball can do about Rodriguez, or any of the other players named, is unclear.
Because the potential evidence does not involve failed drug tests, baseball is back where it has been in the past, seeking perhaps to punish players without having the necessary evidence to do so. In the case of the Biogenesis clinic, baseball’s investigators did travel to Florida to meet with members of the Drug Enforcement Administration, who were taking a close look at the facility.
But whether federal authorities would share with baseball any evidence they develop on the clinic is unclear. In other instances over the last decade, that has not happened.
“If the feds are not going to prosecute this case, it would be much better for us for them to give us some usable evidence like the documents so we can do our job and suspend the players,” a baseball official said. “We could be in discipline hell if that doesn’t happen.”
That official knows that baseball has had little success in suspending players for violating the drug testing program when the players have not actually tested positive. Of the roughly 40 players who have been suspended for violating the testing program since 2005, only a handful have been suspended based on evidence developed by baseball’s investigators or from medical records or court documents.
The most high-profile instance of a suspension without a drug test occurred in 2005 when relief pitcher Jason Grimsley was barred for 50 games after federal authorities unsealed court documents that showed that Grimsley admitted to a federal agent that he had used human growth hormone.
As for the Florida clinic, it has been on the radar of both baseball and the federal government since at least 2009, when investigators uncovered evidence that the slugger Manny Ramirez had received a banned drug from the facility. Ramirez was ultimately suspended 50 games for that infraction.
Last summer, baseball’s investigators began to take another look at the clinic after Cabrera, then leading the National League in hitting as the San Francisco Giants’ starting left fielder, tested positive for elevated testosterone. In the course of that positive test, two people in baseball said, baseball’s investigators uncovered evidence that an employee for Cabrera’s agents, Sam and Seth Levinson, had hatched a cover-up scheme to deceive a baseball arbitrator and have the suspension for the positive drug test thrown out.
Angered, baseball officials began investigating the employee, Juan Nunez, and the Levinsons.
