IN THE CLEAR
MLB drops suit against Bosch
MAJOR LEAGUE Baseball quietly dropped the lawsuit it used to persuade Biogenesis founder Anthony Bosch to share the damning evidence that led to Alex Rodriguez’s seasonlong doping suspension.
MLB lawyers filed a one-sentence notice of withdrawal in Florida state court in Miami on Tuesday, ending the litigation against Bosch and five of his Biogenesis associates and effectively closing one of the most contentious chapters in baseball history.
The Daily News reported Feb. 11 that MLB would drop the suit it filed against Bosch last March in the wake of Rodriguez’s decision to abandon the lawsuits he had filed against MLB, commissioner Bud Selig and the Players Association seeking to dismiss the 162-game ban arbitrator Fredric Horowitz issued in December. He has agreed to accept his punishment and will begin the suspension when the Yankees’ season opens on April 1.
The Bosch suit also included Juan Carlos Nunez, a former employee of the ACES sports agency who played a role in creating a phony website designed to disguise a positive drug test by ACES client Melky Cabrera in 2012.
The investigation that sprang from that case led to the Biogenesis investigation and the eventual suspension of 14 players, including Rodriguez. The suit was widely questioned at the time it was filed by critics who said it lacked merit and was an attempt to gather evidence against Rodriguez and the other players.
But the litigation ultimately became one of the most important factors in MLB’s probe.
Faced with mounting legal bills stemming from the litigation, Bosch agreed last June to cooperate with MLB and became its chief witness, testifying to having provided massive amounts of performance-enhancing drugs to Rodriguez once the third baseman challenged Selig’s 211-game suspension in arbitration. The other players accepted their suspensions without a fight. In return for Bosch’s testimony and cooperation, MLB officials agreed to pay his legal expenses and indemnify him in the case of future litigation.
Bosch, in return, delivered devastating testimony about Rodriguez’s use of per for mance-enhancing drugs during the arbitration hearing. Horowitz noted in his report that while Bosch was hardly an ideal witness, he helped supply the “clear and convincing evidence” that led him to ban A-Rod for the entire 2014 season.
As The News reported, the withdrawal of the suit against Bosch can leave Rodriguez breathing a little easier: he will lose $25 million in salary this year but will not have to worry about further damaging testimony involving drug use, at least not from that suit.