NEW YORK — Alex Rodriguez was ensnared in a doping investigation once again Tuesday when an alternative weekly newspaper reported baseball’s highest-paid star was among a half-dozen players listed in records of a Florida clinic the paper said sold performance-enhancing drugs.
The Miami New Times said the three-time AL MVP bought human growth hormone and other performance-enhancing substances during 2009-12 from Biogenesis of America LLC, a now-closed anti-aging clinic in Coral Cables, Fla., near Rodriguez’s offseason home.
The new public relations firm for the New York Yankees third baseman issued a statement denying the allegations.
The newspaper said it obtained records detailing purchases by Rodriguez, 2012 All-Star game MVP Melky Cabrera, 2005 AL Cy Young Award winner Bartolo Colon and 2011 AL championship series MVP Nelson Cruz of Texas.
Other baseball players the newspaper said appeared in the records include Washington pitcher Gio Gonzalez, who finished third in last year’s NL Cy Young Award voting, and San Diego catcher Yasmani Grandal.
Biogenesis, which the New Times said was run by Anthony Bosch, was located in a beige, nondescript office park.
“There was a flier put out by the building management a couple weeks ago. It was put on all the doors and windows of all the offices,” said Brad Nickel, who works in a group cruise planning company on the floor above where the clinic was located. “It just said this guy’s not really a doctor, he doesn’t belong here, he’s no longer allowed here, call the police or the building management if you see him.”
David Sierra, who works in his aunt’s real estate office in the same building, kept a picture of the flier on his iPhone. He recognized the doctor in the picture from passing him in the hallway.
Sierra said while he never recognized any of the clients at the clinic, “there were always really nice cars in front — I’m not talking just Mercedes. Range Rovers, Bentleys.”
The New Times posted copies of what it said were Bosch’s handwritten records, obtained through a former Biogenesis employee it did not identify.
Rodriguez appears 16 times in the documents it received, the paper said, either as “Alex Rodriguez,” “Alex Rod” or the nickname “Cacique,” a pre-Columbian Caribbean chief.
Rodriguez admitted four years ago that he used PEDs from 2001-03. Cabrera, Colon and Grandal were suspended for 50 games each last year by MLB following tests for elevated testosterone. Responding to the testosterone use, MLB and the players’ union said Jan. 10 they were authorizing the World Anti-Doping Agency laboratory outside Montreal to store each major leaguer’s baseline testosterone/epitestosterone (T/E) ratio in order to detect abnormalities.
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