'Blood Sport' Authors On WFAN: Bosch Lost A-Rod's Blood On Dance Floor
NEW YORK (WFAN) -- A new book claims Major League Baseball allowed Alex Rodriguez to use a banned substance before his monster season in 2007.
But that's not all.
"Blood Sport: Alex Rodriguez, Biogenesis, and the Quest to End Baseball's Steroid Era" is full of juicy bits, including a gem that co-authors Gus Garcia-Roberts and Tim Elfrink shared with WFAN's "Boomer & Carton" show on Tuesday.
Garcia-Roberts said former Biogenesis head Tony Bosch, MLB's star witness in its performance-enhancing drugs case against the New York Yankees third baseman, admitted in his testimony to a night club caper involving, allegedly, a lost vial of Rodriguez's blood.
"There was one really incredible story where Bosch goes to meet Rodriguez at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach, the LIV night club, specifically. Bosch mentioned that on '60 Minutes,' but what he didn't mention, probably because it's embarrassing, is ... he draws A-Rod's blood, puts the vial in his breast pocket," Garcia-Roberts said. "He's in the bathroom stall, in the men's room, Yuri Sucart is guarding (the door) of course. And he goes out on the dance floor. And he starts dancing, loses the blood -- he said all this in his testimony -- loses the blood on the floor and is frantically looking around for a while, and finally finds it.
"And when you learn this stuff, it's really incredible that these are the guys who tricked baseball, or at least baseball didn't expose them for the three years that they were together."
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A-Rod has admitted to using PEDs while with the Texas Rangers from 2001-03. He fought MLB and Commissioner Bud Selig every step of the way during the Biogenesis scandal, and ultimately had his 211-game suspension reduced to the entire 2014 season following a contentious arbitration process. He vowed to fight the ruling, but eventually dropped all lawsuits against baseball and the Yankees.
"A lot of what we know about this saga, we only know because A-Rod took this fight as far as he could possibly take it," said Elfrink, who broke the Biogenesis story with the Miami New Times in January 2013. "We would have no idea what had happened in the actual arbitrator's decision except that A-Rod continued his lawsuit afterwards and had to enter it into evidence."
"Blood Sport" was released on Tuesday. The authors admitted they were "shocked" to learn Rodriguez was granted a therapeutic-use exemption (TUE) to use testosterone during his third MVP season in '07. The feeling was shared by media and fans alike last week when excerpts detailing it were published.
"It actually took a while for us to figure out what this meant. And the ramifications hit us pretty hard," Garcia-Roberts said. "We were shocked to see that he received a TUE for testosterone, which is very rare. And then we were especially shocked to see that it happened before the 2007 season, which was one of his strongest seasons, and after that season he signed his $275-million contract extension with the Yankees."
Garcia-Roberts and Elfrink painted A-Rod as a complicated man who "needs people to do his dirty work." His circle included Sucart, the infamous cousin who has been referred to repeatedly as Rodriguez's PED mule.
"We discovered that Yuri has a very interesting background," Garcia-Roberts told Boomer & Carton. "In the '90s, he actually was convicted of ... dealing cocaine, and he served time at Rikers Island right near here (in New York). That's one of the real fascinating things, is the people that Rodriguez surrounds himself with."
The 38-year-old A-Rod, who has a history of hip issues, will be eligible to return to the Yankees for Opening Day in 2015. He's signed through 2017 and is scheduled to earn around $20 million per season, not including milestone bonuses.
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