Yankees star A-Rod named other players in Biogenesis scandal
Before Alex Rodriguez flipped the switch on his defiant, longtime drug-cheat image … before the post-career entrepreneurial whirl and frolic across the celebrity landscape with superstar then-fiancée Jennifer Lopez … before the TV gigs with Fox Sports and ESPN and a failed attempt to purchase the New York Mets followed by the successful bid for a minority piece of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx … before all that, A-Rod had to finally come clean about his sordid past.
Here’s how it unfolded.
Nearly a decade ago, the then-New York Yankees third baseman walked into a beige-and-glass building in the affluent master-planned community of Weston, Florida, situated along the Everglades about 22 miles west of Fort Lauderdale. He had been summoned there on Jan. 29, 2014, for an interview inside the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s Miami Division offices. Alongside his attorney, Rodriguez’s audience that day would include 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.
Less than three weeks earlier, Rodriguez had been suspended by Major League Baseball’s independent arbitrator for the entire upcoming 2014 season, for being a drug cheat and, even more damning, for attempting to obstruct MLB’s investigation of him and his ties to the Biogenesis performance-enhancing doping scandal. Despite his perennial All-Star status, Rodriguez had long been one of the game’s polarizing figures, and by this time in 2014, he was an old 38, fresh off two hip surgeries, and with a reputation in tatters as he was about to forgo $25 million in salary from the Yankees.
The federal agents didn’t care much about any of that; they were trying to untangle the Biogenesis of America drug-dealing operation of which A-Rod was a central figure — even though he and other pro athletes caught up in the investigation were never criminal targets. Rodriguez set foot in the DEA office that day armed with prosecutor-granted “Queen for a Day” status, meaning that whatever he shared with authorities could not be used against him in later legal proceedings. Still, though, he had to tell the truth or he faced potential serious charges of lying to federal agents.
And what he said behind closed doors that day, as well as what other people caught up in the DEA’s 21-month federal investigation of Biogenesis told agents, paints a starkly darker image than the confident, smiling A-Rod seen these days after the completion of one of the greatest image makeovers in American sports history. Details gleaned from the investigation make the two-way amour with Major League Baseball as a front-and-center announcer and ambassador seem even more unlikely.
Alongside A-Rod that late January day sat the combative Joe Tacopina, a well-known New York lawyer who has since surfaced as lead attorney for former President Donald Trump in a few cases, including the headline-grabbing case tied to alleged hush-money payments made to porn actor Stormy Daniels.
The A-Rod legal team knew a truth-telling session with the feds brought risks, but, in a fortuitous twist of fate, it came after his arbitration hearing with Major League Baseball. Had it come earlier, feds might have shared information with MLB officials that could have hurt his arbitration case.
Even as he approached the arbitration hearing, A-Rod hadn’t been truthful to his legal team, sources close to the case told ESPN. His legal team wasn’t naive enough to accept that he had never used PEDs, but it had bought into his claim that Biogenesis clinic operator Tony Bosch was a liar who had been propped up and used by Major League Baseball to take down A-Rod.
Leading up to A-Rod’s arbitration, Tacopina spoke during a national TV appearance about baseball’s weak evidence, confidently predicting his client would not “serve one inning of a suspension, as opposed to 211 games.”
Tacopina recently told ESPN this of A-Rod: He had always maintained that “Bosch is full of s—, Bosch is full of s—.”
A meeting with federal agents — in which the stakes were much higher — was seen as problematic and thus was put off as long as possible. One A-Rod team member told ESPN, “Everybody knew that once the DEA required an interview of Alex it was game over, because he was going to have to admit to everything he did.”
