TAMPA — Although Alex Rodriguez admitted to meeting with a Major League Baseball investigation team Thursday night, he refused to discuss the FBI wanting to talk to him about a relationship with Dr. Anthony Galea.
The FBI has been ready to move on this situation for more than two weeks, but Rodriguez’s camp has been slow to agree to a date when investigators can ask Rodriguez about Galea, who has been linked to performance-enhancing drugs.
“I am not allowed to get into that,” Rodriguez said when asked if his meeting with federal investigators would be before tomorrow night’s season opener in Boston.
When Rodriguez’s name surfaced as someone the feds wanted to talk to about Galea, whose assistant was arrested in upstate New York with banned substances, MLB said it would wait to meet with the Yankees third baseman. However, because of the slow pace of the issue, MLB talked to Rodriguez this week.
“It went well. I cooperated,” Rodriguez said of his second spring meeting with MLB investigators in as many years. He met with them after admitting last spring to steroid use during his time with the Rangers. “I am very happy.”
Both MLB and the FBI want to know exactly what Galea did for Rodriguez last year when he was recuperating from surgery on his right hip. Galea, a Toronto resident known for a blood cleansing treatment that supposedly speeds healing, has said he treated Rodriguez with anti-inflammatory drugs.
However, the FBI and MLB have a problem with Galea treating anybody in the United States, where he isn’t licensed.
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said “no comment” yesterday when asked if Rodriguez had a meeting with the feds set up before tomorrow.