DEA Documents: Baseball Superstar Ratted Out Other Stars, Lied to His Own Team
Explosive Drug Enforcement Administration documents are dredging up old skeletons in the closet of former New York Yankees superstar slugger Alex Rodriguez.
DEA documents obtained by ESPN have fleshed out what exactly was going in Rodriguez’s personal and professional life when his reputation was at an utter nadir.
A quick background: Rodriguez was suspended in late 2013 for the entirety of the 2014 season after MLB’s investigation found that not only was Rodriguez a drug cheat, but that he had attempted to obstruct the league’s investigation into those claims.
Just a few weeks after that suspension was handed down, Rodriguez met with a cavalcade of U.S. government officials.
Per ESPN, Rodriguez, flanked by his legal counsel, met with a group that included “two assistant U.S. attorneys from the U.S. Department of Justice and seven DEA agents, among them the federal agency’s regional boss and his top assistant” on Jan. 29, 2014.
The federal agents were speaking to Rodriguez because he was a central figure in the Biogenesis of America drug-dealing scandal that had rocked baseball and the country.
(For the unaware, in 2013, Biogenesis was outed as having supplied a number of baseball players with performance-enhancing drugs, such as human growth hormones.)
Interestingly, Rodriguez walked into that January meeting with prosecutor-granted “Queen for a Day” status, which means that nothing he divulged to authorities could be used against him in later legal proceedings.
Armed with that “Queen” status, Rodriguez reportedly spilled the beans.
Despite denying publicly that he ever took steroids just weeks later, those DEA documents claim that Rodriguez came fully clean in that late January meeting, admitting that he took steroids.
But it wasn’t just himself that Rodriguez outed.
Per ESPN, the retired Yankees third baseman specifically outed: former Boston Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez, former Milwaukee Brewers star Ryan Braun, and an unnamed All-Star player.
(The unnamed All-Star never tested positive for PEDs, was never sought out by authorities, and was never suspended from the league.)
Another fascinating tidbit unearthed by ESPN: A-Rod blatantly lied to New York Yankees team president Randy Levine about his association with Tony Bosch, a key figure in the Biogenesis scandal.
Rodriguez brazenly told Levine that he didn’t have “any relationship with Bosch.”
Not only did he have a relationship with Bosch, Rodriguez also reportedly illegally received Cialis and Viagra from him for “fun.”
Before these recent revelations, it’s undeniable that Rodriguez has done an incredible job rehabbing his image.
This ESPN report notwithstanding, Rodriguez has distanced himself from scandal and thrived as a businessman and television personality.
Not only is Rodriguez a minority owner of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves, he has a number of television gigs (typically associated with baseball) and other multimedia ventures.
Rodriguez is also an occasional guest “shark” on the investment reality show “Shark Tank.”
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