MLB’S MISSION TO STRIKE STR OUT A-ROD

Tell-all reveals bosses' hardball plays & Yank's brushback tactics

From 2008 to 2014, former Boston cop Eddie Dominguez served in Major League Baseball’s Department of Investigations, a supposedly independent unit charged with cleaning up the sport following its performance-enhancing-drug scandals. But in his new book, “Baseball Cop: The Dark Side of America’s National Pastime” (Hachette Books), out Tuesday, the veteran detective tells how the powers that be, including former MLB Commissioner Bud Selig and his successor, Rob Manfred, interfered with his efforts while pressing for Yankee superstar Alex Rodriguez to be taken down. This adapted excerpt reveals how nasty the battle between Manfred and A-Rod became and how PEDs are likely being used as frequently as ever by MLB players today.

IN 2012, the DOI presented the DEA with evidence against Tony Bosch, the founder of Biogenesis, which provided performance-enhancing drugs. By January 2013, the connection of certain players, including ARod, to Biogenesis had gone public thanks to an explosive article in the Miami New Times. Manfred and Selig targeted A-Rod — possibly, says Dominguez, because he’s “very similar to Pete Rose — he would get the most publicity” — and wanted him and agents Seth and Sam Levinson, who also represented PED user Melky Cabrera, taken down.

Several weeks of conference calls directed by Manfred followed, punctuated by orders to “Get ARod and the Levinsons.” A-Rod, by then, was baseball’s Public Enemy No. 1.

Manfred would often put “Al from Milwaukee” — his name for Selig — on the line.

“Al from Milwaukee” would then repeat all the threats Manfred had already hit us with, and then he would say, “Gentlemen, I want ARod and the Levinsons and I want them now. I don’t want to wait 30, 60 or 90 days, I want this solved now! I don’t want to hear stories about it’s going to take time because of the DEA investigations. We are Major League Baseball, and we want results now. If you can’t get us those results, we will find someone who can.”

As Dominguez depicts it, MLB would stop at nothing to take down A-Rod, even if it meant intimidating witnesses. Such was the case with former University of Miami coach Lazer Collazo, who received a visit from Pat Houlihan, an MLB lawyer, and Neil Boland, an IT guy from MLB who had become “one of Manfred’s right-hand men.”

Years later, Collazo would recall how Boland and Houlihan appeared at his suburban Miami home “around 10” on the night of April 4 to peper him with questions about Alex Rodriguez and Biogenesis.

“They asked me about Alex, about Tony Bosch,” Collazo said. “They wanted more, and what I mean by wanting more, they kept saying, We feel you know a lot more than what you’re saying. You know more. We’re going to take this too the newspaper.”

Collazo, who is Cuban-American, said he feared for his family.

“They said if you don’t give us more, we’re going to embarrass your family on their visas,” he said. “Not only was my wife there, but Daniella, my youngest child, was about 9 or 10 and she heard all this. She got pretty emotional. She heard about jail, because they mentioned jail. You know, they were trying to scare me.”

Collazo, who happened to have had jury duty the next day, said that MLB “kept calling me, calling me. We had to break for jury duty, so I called them back. They were getting after me. ‘We know that you have more information on Alex. We know you’ve met with Alex. We know, we know.’ Threats, that’s the right word to use.”

I don’t believe for one second it was about the PEDs. It was about public image. — Author Eddie Dominguez, on the feud between A-Rod and MLB boss Rob Manfred, who were still chummy in 2017 when they posed with J.Lo and Manfred’s wife, Colleen (above)