Anthony Bosch Talked About MLB Doping Scandal On Sunday's 60 Minutes
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - An interview with the man at the center of the Major League Baseball doping scandal aired Sunday evening on CBS News 60 Minutes.
Anthony Bosch, the former chief of the now-closed Biogenesis clinic, sat down with CBS anchor Scott Pelley.
MLB's COO Rob Manfred also spoke to Pelley.
Biogenesis is accused of selling performance enhancing drugs to MLB players, most notably one-time MVP Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers and longtime star Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees.
On Saturday, Rodriguez's 211-game suspension from MLB was lowered by an arbitrator to 162 games, plus any 2014 playoff games.
MLB claims in a lawsuit that Biogenesis and Bosch, along with others, created a violation of the players' contracts by supplying them with banned substances.
Rodriguez has denied using banned drugs as a Yankee and has never tested positive for a banned substance since he joined the New York team.
During the interview, Bosch disputes that.
Bosch told Pelley he personally delivered banned substances, including testosterone, insulin-like growth factor 1 and human growth hormones to Rodriguez at least a dozen times and Rodriguez paid him $12,000 a month in cash.
"Alex is scared of needles, so at times, he would ask me to inject," Bosch told Pelley.
Bosch said Rodriguez's mission was to hit 800 home runs and that the Yankee slugger asked him for what he gave MLB superstar Manny Ramirez, a former Bosch client.
Text messages obtained by 60 Minutes between Bosch and Rodriguez indicate that at times they communicated daily about the substances the slugger took on his "protocol".
Bosch said associates of Rodriguez tried to intimidate him so he would not cooperate with the MLB investigation.
During his interview, Manfred told Pelley that he believes the threats Bosch said he received could be legitimate.
"The concerns seemed credible, particularly given that he identified individuals that we had our own concerns about," said Manfred.
Manfred and MLB dropped a lawsuit against Bosch. They are now paying for security guards for him and have agreed to cover his legal fees in return for his cooperation. In Rodriguez's own lawsuit against MLB, he charges that this arrangement is essentially a $5 million dollar bribe, which Manfred says is "absolutely untrue."
