Report: MLB Still Probing A-Rod's Involvement With Toronto HGH Doc
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Major League Baseball has its hands full with more players linked each week to Biogenesis, the now-shuttered clinic in Florida that allegedly supplied professional athletes with performance-enhancing drugs.
But another PED scandal has been "quietly revisited," and it also involves Yankees star Alex Rodriguez, according to the New York Daily News.
MLB investigators "are looking at testimony provided to federal authorities" by A-Rod and others in the case of disgraced Toronto sports physician Anthony Galea, who was sentenced to time served in 2011 for bringing banned and mislabeled drugs -- including HGH -- into the U.S.
Galea's list of clients included Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes, Tiger Woods, Dara Torres and other notable athletes. A-Rod told MLB investigators at the time that he never received PEDs from Galea, the Daily News reported.
"If baseball finds that Rodriguez testified differently to a grand jury or other federal investigators, it can move toward disciplining the embattled Yankee third baseman," the paper reported. "Investigators are interested in what Galea testified to, as well, as he was negotiating his plea agreement. There are three sealed documents in the case file."
A-Rod, recovering from offseason hip surgery, was named last month in a growing scandal linking MLB pros and prospects to Biogenesis. Rodriguez, who admitted in 2009 to using steroids from 2001-03 with the Texas Rangers, has denied involvement and insisted in a statement that he has no relationship with Biogenesis head Anthony Bosch.
MLB can suspend a player for PEDs without a positive test if it believes it finds justifiable evidence.
Rodriguez is rehabbing in New York, not in Tampa with the rest of the Yankees. He was on the back pages in New York on Thursday after being spotted at the Atlantic Grill on the Upper West Side.
"I wanted to ask him how we could get out of his contract," one wait-staffer told the Daily News after A-Rod's lunch on Wednesday.
What's your gut say -- will A-Rod ever play for the Yankees again? Will he be suspended by MLB? Sound off in the comments...
