Alex Rodriguez’s camp pounced on a report that alleged Major League Baseball officials “likely” knew they were purchasing stolen documents in pursuit of Rodriguez and other players.
ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” reported Friday MLB investigators impeded a similar endeavor by the Florida Department of Health when they bought evidence of players’ activity with Biogenesis, the shuttered South Florida anti-aging clinic. Rob Manfred, the MLB COO, testified in Rodriguez’s appeal hearing (which resumes Monday at MLB’s Park Avenue headquarters) that the league didn’t know the documents were stolen when he authorized the payment of $125,000 in cash for them.
In a statement, Rodriguez’s attorney Jordan Siev said: “Today’s report … confirms what Mr. Rodriguez alleged in his lawsuit against MLB and Commissioner [Bud] Selig over a month ago — that MLB investigators knowingly purchased stolen documents in their quest to allow Commissioner Selig to act, for the first time, as if he was tough on PED use in baseball despite striking a cooperation deal with [Biogenesis owner] Anthony Bosch who MLB knows is under federal investigation for providing steroids to minors.”
MLB responded: “The truth continues to be that we did not knowingly purchase stolen documents and there is an active police investigation to determine if the documents were in fact stolen.”