Alex Rodriguez may be claiming the same defense that Barry Bonds has used in his performance-enhancing drug case. According to reports, the New York Yankees player says if Biogenesis provided him with PEDs, he didn’t know about it.
The appeal of A-Rod’s 211-game suspension for PED use started Monday and will last a few months. According to the Daily News:
“That narrative conflicts with the version told by Anthony Bosch, the founder and proprietor of the now-shuttered facility, who spent part of Monday and almost all of Tuesday testifying before the three-person panel that will decide on the appropriateness of the 211-game doping ban Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig imposed upon Rodriguez in August.
“Bosch, who is cooperating with MLB, has spent much of that time validating a vast trove of Biogenesis documents as well as his own electronic communications with Rodriguez. The league believes the evidence reflects a deep dealer-source relationship. If the Biogenesis products were legitimate, MLB argues, why were they so expensive and why were the transactions so secretive?
“Attorneys for Rodriguez will likely begin their cross-examination of Bosch on Wednesday, attacking his credibility during the closed-door hearing as they have for several months now — pointing out that MLB’s investigators paid Bosch for his evidence and offered to drop him from a lawsuit if he cooperated with their probe. They may also point out that Bosch is the subject of federal and state criminal investigations in Florida, and that he was fined $5,000 by the Florida Department of Health for holding himself out as a doctor.”
The third base player isn’t the first MLB player to say he didn’t knowingly take PEDs. Bonds and Roger Clemens both had the same claim in their banned substances cases in recent years.
