Alex Rodriguez has spent his career searching for competitive edges — some legal, others decidedly less so. In his last elite major league season, he found a legal means to an often-forbidden performance-enhancing drug.
As first reported in the book “Blood Sport: Alex Rodriguez, Biogenesis and the Quest to End Baseball’s Steroid Era,” by Tim Elfrink and Gus Garcia-Roberts — and excerpted in this week’s issue of Sports Illustrated — A-Rod received a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) to receive testosterone, an anabolic steroid, for the 2007 season.
Rodriguez proceeded to win the American League Most Valuable Player award that year, as he paced the major leagues with 54 home runs and posted a monster slash line of .314/.422/.645.
In A-Rod’s grievance hearing last fall, which resulted in independent arbitrator Fredric Horowitz decreasing A-Rod’s suspension from 211 games to 162 games (the entire 2014 season) for his involvement with the now-shuttered South Florida anti-aging clinic Biogenesis, MLB submitted details of A-Rod’s quest for exemptions to exemplify the third baseman’s history of trying to use drugs that were banned without a prescription.
On Feb. 16, 2007, two days before A-Rod reported to spring training, independent program administrator Bryan W. Smith, whose hiring was approved by both MLB and the Players Association, signed off on A-Rod using the drug for the entire upcoming campaign.
In his testimony against A-Rod last year, MLB COO Rob Manfred described testosterone as “the mother of all anabolics.” He also said exemptions for the drug are “very rare,” partly because “some people who have been involved in this field feel that with a young male, healthy young male, the most likely cause of low testosterone requiring this type of therapy would be prior steroid abuse.”
After memorably opting out of his contract during the 2007 World Series and then signing his ongoing, 10-year, $275 million extension with the Yankees, A-Rod continued to successfully work the system.
In January 2008, according to MLB’s testimony, he requested exemptions for 1) Clomid, a fertility drug for women that also helps men with a testosterone deficiency, and 2) HCG, a hormone utilized for weight loss and testosterone production. Smith approved A-Rod’s usage of Clomid, which is used by bodybuilders at the end of steroid cycles to stimulate the body to make more testosterone, and denied his right to use HCG. A-Rod hit 35 homers with a .302/.392/.573 slash line in 2008.
The book’s disclosures make MLB look overly tolerant given what has transpired since then, though A-Rod was one of just two players to receive a testosterone allowance in 2007 and one of three to get permission to use Clomid in 2008.
In a statement, MLB defended its actions in light of the A-Rod revelation.
“All decisions regarding whether a player shall receive a therapeutic use exemption (TUE) under the Joint Drug Program are made by the Independent Program Administrator (IPA) in consultation with outside medical experts, with no input by either the Office of the Commissioner or the Players Association,” the statement read. “The process is confidentially administered by the IPA, and MLB and the MLBPA are not even made aware of which players applied for TUEs.
“The TUE process under the Joint Drug Program is comparable to the process under the World Anti-Doping Code. The standard for receiving a TUE for a medication listed as a performance-enhancing substance is stringent, with only a few such TUEs being issued each year by the IPA. MLB and the MLBPA annually review the TUE process to make sure it meets the most up-to-date standards for the issuance of TUEs.
“As recommended by the Mitchell Report, since 2008 MLB and the MLBPA have publicly issued the IPA’s annual report, which documents how many TUEs were granted for each category of medication. We believe this high level of transparency helps to ensure the proper operation of the TUE process.”
Ron Berkowitz, A-Rod’s spokesman, said he wouldn’t comment on the new information.
“As we have said in the past,” Berkowitz said, “we have turned the page from this and are looking towards 2015 and getting back on the field.”