Baseball could be facing another huge doping scandal after the founder of the Biogenesis clinic reportedly agreed to cooperate with an MLB investigation. Dozens of players, A-Rod and Ryan Braun among them, could face long suspensions.
In this 2012 photo, New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez watches a home run against the Seattle Mariners in a baseball game in Seattle.
Elaine Thompson/AP
EnlargeMajor League Baseball could be facing its biggest doping scandal since BALCO a decade ago, one that implicates dozens of players, including a few whose names look pretty familiar alongside steroid allegations: Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Braun, Melky Cabrera, Nelson Cruz, ?and others. But while the game?s fans might be thinking, ?didn?t we just do this??,? this latest dustup is different, and it probably won?t be the last.
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ESPN?s ?Outside the Lines? (OTL) cited several unnamed sources in reporting that Tony Bosch, founder of the now-closed anti-aging clinic Biogenesis America in Miami, has agreed to cooperate with Major League Baseball in its investigation of the clinic, which allegedly provided Human Growth Hormone and other illegal substances to an ever-growing list of MLB players. (Right now 20 Major League players and one minor league player are implicated; the list could grow, according to ESPN.)
The Biogenesis link to Major League Baseball was initially reported by the Miami New Times in February, and the league has been pursuing Mr. Bosch and Biogenesis ever since, filing a lawsuit against Bosch in late March and buying documents from former Biogenesis employees, according to The New York Times. (MLB first tried, and failed, to get documents from the Miami New Times.)
Sources told ESPN and OTL that on the basis of Bosch?s cooperation, MLB is pursing 100-game suspensions for A-Rod and the rest. Under the league?s collective bargaining agreement with the players, a first-time doping offense carries a 50-game suspension; lying about it constitutes another offense and another 50 games.
Rodriguez has admitted to having used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) in the past, but the new policies were put in place after the fact. Braun famously tested positive for PEDs in 2011, but successfully appealed the ruling on the basis of faulty testing. He has responded to the Biogenesis allegations by saying that he merely consulted with Bosch while preparing that appeal.
The case drudges up a veritable bonanza of thorny issues for professional baseball , both legally and in terms of public perception. But how MLB handles Biogenesis and the offending players could provide a useful roadmap for other major sports leagues in navigating their own doping problems.
First, the bad news: Baseball is the last sport that needs another wide-ranging, public doping debacle.?BALCO was barely a decade ago.?Some of the names, like A-Rod and Bartolo Colon, are the same, and on the surface it can seem like very little has changed from the era where doping was the rule, rather than the supposed exception. ?In the short term I?m sure it?s painful for fans and players to have another drug scandal. In the short term, people are going to be mad,? says?Tom Murray, president emeritus of The Hastings Center, a bioethics research institute based in Garrison, N.Y.
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