MLB seeks to suspend A-Rod, Braun

cvictorg

New Member
Major League Baseball might suspend 18 players, including Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun as part of Miami investigation - ESPN

Major League Baseball will seek to suspend about 20 players connected to the Miami-area clinic at the heart of an ongoing performance-enhancing drug scandal, including Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun, possibly within the next few weeks, "Outside the Lines" has learned. If the suspensions are upheld, the performance-enhancing drug scandal would be the largest in American sports history.

Tony Bosch, founder of the now-shuttered Biogenesis of America, reached an agreement this week to cooperate with MLB's investigation, two sources told "Outside the Lines," giving MLB the ammunition officials believe they need to suspend the players.

One source familiar with the case said the commissioner's office might seek 100-game suspensions for Rodriguez, Braun and other players, the penalty for a second doping offense. The argument, the source said, is the players' connection to Bosch constitutes one offense, and previous statements to MLB officials denying any such connection or the use of PEDs constitute another. Bosch and his attorneys did not return several calls. MLB officials refused to comment when reached Tuesday.

Bosch is expected to begin meeting with officials -- and naming names -- within a week. The announcement of suspensions could follow within two weeks.

Investigators have had records naming about 20 players for more than a month. But without a sworn statement from Bosch that the records are accurate and reflect illicit interactions between the players and the self-described biochemist, the documents were little more than a road map.

Sources did not say what other materials, such as receipts and phone records, Bosch might provide, but said he has pledged to provide anything in his possession that could help MLB build cases against the players. Sources said MLB officials were not sure how many players may end up being pulled into the scandal: The 20 or so they know of have been identified through paperwork, but Bosch is expected to provide more. (Because some players are listed by their names and some by code names, officials are not yet certain whether some are redundant.)

The players who might ultimately face discipline from MLB include: Rodriguez, Braun, Cabrera, Colon, Grandal, Nelson Cruz, Francisco Cervelli, Jesus Montero, Jhonny Peralta, Cesar Puello, Fernando Martinez, Everth Cabrera, Fautino de los Santos, Jordan Norberto and a number of players who are either identified by code names or whose names appear in other documents not obtained by "Outside the Lines."

One player listed who will be scrutinized but possibly exonerated is the Nationals' Gio Gonzalez, who was listed among Biogenesis clients, but two sources told ESPN the only substances he received from the clinic were legal.
 
I'm assuming the guy cooperated with the feds to receive a lesser sentence? It's a sick thing, once people start telling it seems like they just can't stop.
Is he gaining anything by ratting to MLB brass? WTF is his problem? He acts like he's 9yrs old. He got in trouble so it's only right that that the guys that lined his pockets do also?
There's a lot of money at stake here....and the people he's fucking with are all multi millionaires. I hope he has a tragic accident and has his head cut off.
 
I'm assuming the guy cooperated with the feds to receive a lesser sentence? It's a sick thing, once people start telling it seems like they just can't stop.
Is he gaining anything by ratting to MLB brass? WTF is his problem? He acts like he's 9yrs old. He got in trouble so it's only right that that the guys that lined his pockets do also?
There's a lot of money at stake here....and the people he's fucking with are all multi millionaires. I hope he has a tragic accident and has his head cut off.

It doesn't involve the feds (at least not yet and not directly); he's not facing a criminal conviction. Bosch is allegedly going to rat out clients so that MLB will drop its lawsuit against him. Some people think the lawsuit is frivolous and wouldn't stand up in court. But Bosch may be broke and unable to defend himself and you don't even get a public defender in a civil case.

My question would be: if Bosch cooperates with MLB so they drop lawsuit, could feds still charge him down the road? He must get assurances that this won't happen.

Does MLB have the power to get the feds indemnify him against future criminal prosecution? If they do, there's something wrong with this picture of the fed govt getting involved in enforcing "morality" in a private organization.
 
I just wonder at what point they finally figure out that the guys using PED's will always be 2 steps ahead of the guys testing.
It just creates a game where half the guys are using and getting away with it, and the rest feel they have to use something just to keep up.
 
MLB seeks to ban Yankees' Alex Rodriguez and more as Biogenesis founder Anthony Bosch may share doping details - NY Daily News

According to a source familiar with the negotiations, Bosch is close to cooperating for two primary reasons: he fears the cost to his family, friends and associates of litigating the lawsuit MLB filed against him this spring for tortious interference with player contracts, as well as possibly facing obstruction of justice charges if federal authorities prosecute him.

Bosch also is apparently desperate for money, according to the source, and MLB was rushing to complete the deal because it is concerned that someone involved in baseball’s latest doping scandal might offer him money not to cooperate.

“They were afraid someone else would pay him,” said the source. “Bosch is the only guy who can provide them with what they need.”

MLB had previously paid a source with access to records from Bosch’s clinic for documents believed to implicate the players, including Rodriguez, who also reportedly paid for Biogenesis documents.


R
 
Does MLB have the power to get the feds indemnify him against future criminal prosecution? If they do, there's something wrong with this picture of the fed govt getting involved in enforcing "morality" in a private organization.

Thank you Reason.com for addressing this ^^^!!

Someone new to the steroids-in-baseball story might be asking at this point, Just what in hell does a professional sports league have to do with federal law enforcement, anyway? The answer is that Major League Baseball and the feds have been explicitly partnered for more than a decade now in their common goal to maximally shame professional ballplayers suspected of ingesting illegal and/or professionally banned substances...

This is an inversion of federal law enforcement priorities. The Department of Justice is supposed to spend scarce enforcement resources on dealers, not end users. But ever since George W. Bush name-checked steroids in his 2004 State of the Union address—emphasizing that usage by elite athletes "sends the wrong message" to kids—federal investigators have focused on the public humiliation of users, rather than the criminal prosecution of dealers...

But it is wildly inappropriate for federal law enforcement to be in the public-shaming business, let alone collaborating openly with a multi-billion industry to change the terms of its industrial relations. A-Rod may be an A-Fraud, and a deeply unlikeable former superstar, but he has never misspent my tax dollars.

Read more: Baseball’s Steroid Collusion With the Feds - Reason.com
 
This just seems like a witch hunt now by the MLB, paying this guy for info on players. While for all those years nobody said a word, while guys are walking into spring training swole as fuck, and hitting 50, 60, 70hrs a year with ease.

It was good for business then, now it's not. Fucking hypocrites. You cleaned up the game after Bonds, McGuire, and Sosa brought the game back, great good. But if you wanna be pro active or whatever the fuck keep up with the testing. The number of guys using in the majors is way down bc of the testing, IMO.
This to me is just weak by the MLB, it's still just for show. I really don't think anybody cares anymore.
 
So does MLB have the balls to issue lifetime bans? Otherwise this dude is nothing but a scapegoat.

I really hope the ratings sink past the rock bottom point they did last year for the world series. It's been a yawnfest since most players have stopped enhancing themselves. The death of MLB would go a long way in helping the cause for legalization.

Whenever you see private enterprise get in bed with government brings everyone that much closer to totalitarianism. Liberty will die to the sound of thunderous applause.
 
HAHA so true tanuki. I haven't really watched baseball since 2004ish. Once the guys started shrinking, it started to get boring again...

When MacGuire and Sosa and the "original" cast of juicers where smashing home runs in the mid-late 90s, MLB turned the other check because all the excitement was bringing baseball back on the map. Baseball was in serious decline before Big Mac's run in 1998 because of the strike in 94.

Once Barry Bonds got big, forget it. A-Fraud might be the only great player more dispised then Bonds. Nobody outside San Fran liked Bonds when he was skinny and great, and when he blew up and got huge - the pitchforks came out.
 
This just seems like a witch hunt now by the MLB, paying this guy for info on players. While for all those years nobody said a word, while guys are walking into spring training swole as fuck, and hitting 50, 60, 70hrs a year with ease.

It was good for business then, now it's not. Fucking hypocrites. You cleaned up the game after Bonds, McGuire, and Sosa brought the game back, great good. But if you wanna be pro active or whatever the fuck keep up with the testing. The number of guys using in the majors is way down bc of the testing, IMO.
This to me is just weak by the MLB, it's still just for show. I really don't think anybody cares anymore.

Knowledge without action would be hypocritical. During the 90s, there was a presumption of innocence. No such thing exists today. They took action when they gained knowledge during the 2000s and it would be hypocritical to not take action now.


Sent from my iPhone, slacking at work, using Tapatalk
 
Knowledge without action would be hypocritical. During the 90s, there was a presumption of innocence. No such thing exists today. They took action when they gained knowledge during the 2000s and it would be hypocritical to not take action now.


The brass knew what was up man, they had the knowledge and no reason to act, ratings up, dollars rolling in. These guys were so jacked for ball players, I remember looking at Jason Giambi at bat, and saying I want some of what he's on. Fucking Bonds ruined it for everybody, he was already universally hated. Then you combine his already hall of hame ability and sprinkle some AAS on
top, and you've got the ultimate ball player. And the end of an era with pressure from above MLB. Congress
 
Yankees' Alex Rodriguez refuses to pay Anthony Bosch, who then cuts deal to help MLB - NY Daily News

The owner of the South Florida anti-aging clinic at the center of baseball’s latest doping scandal asked embattled Yankee star Alex Rodriguez for financial help after Major League Baseball filed a lawsuit that alleged he had sold performance-enhancing drugs to Major League Baseball players.

When Rodriguez rebuffed Anthony Bosch’s request for money, believed to be in the hundreds of thousands, the self-styled “biochemist” turned to a strange bedfellow — MLB.

“A-Rod refused to pay him what he wanted,” said a source. “Baseball was worried about that.”

The value of any information that Bosch might provide, however, is sure to be challenged by the implicated players, since baseball officials have agreed to a series of demands from Bosch that include dropping the lawsuit MLB filed against him earlier this year and paying his legal bills, indemnifying him for any civil liability that arises from his cooperation and providing him with personal security.

MLB officials have also told Bosch they would intervene with any law-enforcement agencies that might prosecute the South Florida businessman because he acknowledged he provided performance-enhancing drugs to ballplayers.
 
Back
Top