by Tim Elfrink
“For the third time in his troubled tenure as owner and Commissioner, Selig had to reinvent himself,” Rodriguez’s attorneys wrote, referring to his post–Mitchell Report malaise. “In early 2013, such an opportunity presented itself in Southern Florida.”
Rodriguez later added new exhibits to the suit, including a photo designed to show just how much Selig hated him. Taken at a 2009 All-Star Game event, it showed a smiling Selig posing with a teenager.
The kid’s T-shirt read: A-ROID.
• • •
If MLB was cowed by Rodriguez’s excoriation of their scorched-earth investigation, its attorneys didn’t show it. As the arbitration continued, people across the country with even a tangential relationship to his possible doping started receiving subpoenas in the Alex Rodriguez matter: “You are hereby commanded that all business and excuses be laid aside to appear and attend before the Arbitration Panel, at The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, 245 Park Avenue . . .”
In particular, MLB attorneys were fixated on confirming the league’s belief that Dr. Anthony Galea, who had treated Tiger Woods and Rodriguez at the same time, had given A-Rod performance-enhancing substances.
In mid-October, Rodriguez’s fight took a field trip to Buffalo, New York, where Galea had been indicted for bringing HGH over the Canada–US border in 2009. Attorneys for MLB had filed a motion with the federal judge to unseal confidential grand jury testimony in the case, in a brazen attempt to discover whether Rodriguez or any other players had admitted to procuring banned substances from the Canadian doctor.
Attorneys for Galea, Rodriguez, and the federal government argued for a judge to keep the records sealed. Their arguments were closed to the public and supposed to be kept secret. “My understanding is that MLB’s attempts to get the grand jury records were in themselves a sealed proceeding,” says Galea’s Canadian attorney, Brian Greenspan, in an interview for this book. “And yet you know of it, which lets me know that the MLB leaked information about their efforts. The MLB once again is conducting themselves outside the law and has breached the rules of grand jury secrecy. MLB, in its pursuit of Alex Rodriguez, has broken all the rules and its lawyers should be ashamed.”
The Buffalo judge rejected MLB’s motion and kept the records sealed. But league officials’ attempts to lay hands on the grand jury testimony remained dogged and elaborate. In the midst of Rodriguez’s arbitration, MLB’s attorneys took an avid interest in an obscure small-potatoes lawsuit in suburban New York.
For years, former Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets slugger Carlos Delgado had been embroiled in a dispute with memorabilia dealer Spencer Lader for $767,500 the player said he was owed from an autograph contract.
Lader, a disbarred attorney, learned that Delgado had been treated by Galea while on the Blue Jays. He argued in court that the contract should be voided if Delgado had used performance-enhancing substances, possibly leading to injury and reducing his memorabilia value. “I would rather spend a million dollars fighting him in court than pay him a dollar,” Lader says in an interview.
In court filings, Delgado denied ever using performance-enhancing substances and provided a letter from the MLBPA stating that he had never failed a league drug test. But on October 9, Delgado sat for a deposition in the case, answering questions about his treatment by Dr. Galea. By a Nassau County judge’s order, the deposition transcript was sealed.
MLB sent Lader a subpoena for any information and documents he might have gleaned concerning Rodriguez’s past use of performance-enhancing substances, a demand made impossible by the Nassau County gag order. The league’s interest was not in any potential doping by Delgado, who had retired after the 2009 season. They were hopeful the fellow Galea client might have somehow implicated Rodriguez.
Lader says that during conversations with the league, an MLB senior counsel asked him to subpoena the grand jury testimony from Galea’s criminal case in Buffalo. Certain that the federal judge would not loosen the secret records for a civil state matter, and not wanting to spend $20,000 on legal fees involved in the attempt, Lader decided not to pursue that gambit, either.
Rodriguez wanted to complain to Horowitz about efforts by MLB to unseal his grand jury testimony in the federal Galea investigation. It was the league once again acting as if its corporate interests—delving into the drug use of an employee—trumped law-enforcement principles, in this case the secrecy of grand juries.
But the union declined to bring it up during the arbitration. Rodriguez was constantly bickering with the union honchos with whom he was supposed to be allied. He tried to get the Players Association to file a federal lawsuit seeking to end MLB’s media leaks about the arbitration. Again, the union demurred, “stating that the proper venue was the ongoing grievance procedure,” Rodriguez complained in a later lawsuit, “a procedure that had proven entirely ineffective at halting MLB’s media campaign.”
As he squabbled with the union, Rodriguez continued to attempt to discredit his accusers and the evidence they brought against him in the arbitration proceedings on Park Avenue.
An expert hired by Team A-Rod tried to cast doubt on the veracity of the Bosch BlackBerry data MLB had introduced, but he had no clear evidence of his own that it had been tampered with. Rodriguez’s attorneys decried the lack of specific dates, times, and dosages in some of the records implicating the player. Tacopina and Company argued that without knowing where Bosch purchased the alleged substances, and no samples being introduced into evidence, it was impossible to determine whether the stuff was banned by baseball.
Rodriguez’s former chum Randy Levine was grilled on the stand as to the purported Yankees conspiracy to exile the superstar from baseball and the e-mails he sent to Rodriguez in which he referred to PEDs, saying second baseman Robinson Cano needed some “liquid” and some “steroids fast!”
Levine, a burly man with a halo of curly hair, denied a bounty or bonus if Rodriguez was cut from the payroll, denied urging Selig to issue a lengthy suspension, said the Yankees did not speak with Yuri Sucart, and claimed that the e-mails about Cano were a joke. Bruli Medina Reyes, who had initially signed affidavits concerning Rodriguez being injected by Yuri Sucart, now testified for the defense, claiming that the league had threatened to ruin his immigration status.
Yuri Sucart himself refused to testify in the arbitration. Having washed his hands of his little primo after being fired and apparently threatening to sue him, Sucart ignored MLB’s subpoenas just as adeptly as he had for years ignored reporters’ notes and calls seeking comment.
Arbitrator Horowitz seemed unimpressed by the “indiscreet sexual liaison,” as he later put it, between Dan Mullin and a former Biogenesis employee—evidence that A-Rod had paid $100,000 to get his hands on.
As the hearing stretched deep into November, Rodriguez’s case appeared to have boiled down to the possibly unlawful tactics of MLB investigators and the faulty ethics of making a deal with a witness like Bosch, who had dealt drugs to minors.
On November 17, Rob Manfred took the stand. Balding and intense with a David Letterman–esque gap between his front teeth, Manfred was the heir apparent as commissioner upon Selig’s departure following the 2014 season. And for better or worse, he was the scent hound who had nosed through every detail of the convoluted and potentially toxic aftermath to the Biogenesis exposé, and directly authorized baseball’s actions. He was also the arbitration panel member representing the league. The transcript of his eight-hour day of testimony was obtained by these authors, a record that revealed much about Rodriguez’s past PED use—the exemptions for testosterone and clomiphene citrate in 2007 and 2008 described earlier in this book—and the current scandal rocking the league.
Tacopina jousted with Manfred during his cross-examination of the baseball executive. He pointed out the letters “HS” next to certain names in the notebook pages entered into evidence. “So, of course, you had an indication Mr. Bosch was distributing drugs to minors before you entered into this agreeme
nt with him, correct?”
“Honestly, whether or not Mr. Bosch had distributed drugs to minors was not of paramount importance to me,” Manfred shot back. “Rarely do you get a witness who is prepared to testify firsthand about his distribution of drugs to professional athletes, who hasn’t engaged in other conduct that’s illegal.”
Tacopina seized on the fact that MLB had agreed to vouch for Bosch’s role in advancing “the public policy goals of eradicating” PEDs from baseball. He asked Manfred if he had asked the parents of those kids on Bosch’s client lists whether they were OK with MLB defending him to the Department of Justice. (Manfred’s answer: “No, I didn’t.”) Eventually, their back-and-forth reached an acid pitch, which ran over arbitrator Horowitz’s ability to interject.
“Were those important public policy goals, were they advanced by agreeing to go to authorities on behalf of Mr. Bosch for distributing narcotics to children?” Tacopina demanded. “Were they advanced?”
Over the objection of the league’s own attorney, Manfred emphatically responded: “I believe those goals were advanced by disciplining players who had used performance-enhancing drugs, and thereby set a terrible example for young people who might be tempted to do the same thing, yes, I do believe that.”
• • •
By November 20, with the arbitration stretching longer than any before it, cold had set in and Rodriguez’s rowdy supporters had largely disappeared from Park Avenue. As far as Rodriguez’s hopes of overturning the suspension, the writing was on the wall, and it was pessimistic graffiti. His lawyers were already discussing appealing Horowitz’s decision to a federal judge.
The wheels fell off the proceedings that day. Rodriguez’s attorneys had called Selig as a witness. Rodriguez later said that he planned to take the witness stand himself after Selig’s turn.
But Horowitz issued a ruling that Selig would not have to testify in the arbitration and that Manfred could instead answer all questions concerning the decision process behind the 211-game punishment.
“This is ridiculous!” Rodriguez yelled, according to multiple news reports. He then directed his wrath at Manfred. “You’re full of shit and you know it. This is fucking bullshit!”
He then stormed out of the proceedings, attorney James McCarroll in tow.
As Rodriguez left the MLB offices, possibly for the last time in his life, Team A-Rod issued a statement. “I am disgusted with this abusive process, designed to ensure that the player fails,” read Rodriguez’s statement. “I have sat through 10 days of testimony by felons and liars, sitting quietly through every minute, trying to respect the league and the process. This morning, after Bud Selig refused to come in and testify about his rationale for the unprecedented and totally baseless punishment he hit me with, the arbitrator selected by MLB and the Players Association refused to order Selig to come in and face me.”
“The absurdity and injustice just became too much,” Rodriguez’s statement concluded. “I walked out and will not participate any further in this farce.”
Since Rodriguez is not known for his spontaneity—or, for that matter, his truthfulness—there could have been legal choreography at work. MLB was certainly going to ask Rodriguez about his history of performance-enhancing drug usage, after all, and his treatment by Anthony Galea. His testimony would be under oath. And his grand jury testimony concerning PED use and Dr. Galea, also under oath, was sitting in a locked file cabinet in Buffalo.
If the two testimonies didn’t match, Rodriguez could be accused of perjury, the same felony charge that had troubled Barry Bonds.
After leaving the hearing, Rodriguez’s Escalade took him directly to a friendly face in Manhattan’s West Village. WFAN radio host Mike Francesa had defended Rodriguez throughout the Biogenesis scandal. The gray-maned “pope” of New York sports coverage on the AM dial, Francesa had the month previous engaged in a shrill on-air screaming match with Daily News reporter Michael O’Keeffe, accusing the newspaper of carrying water for Major League Baseball in its feud with Rodriguez. O’Keeffe countered that Francesa was a softball host to the superstar and had given Rodriguez a “big bro hug” in 2010.
Now Rodriguez, wearing a dark suit in Francesa’s studio, seemed to have been purified by rage of his usual hokey artificiality. “Today I just lost my mind. I banged a table and kicked a briefcase and slammed out of the room,” Rodriguez told Francesa, saying of the arbitration process: “I knew it wasn’t fair but what we saw today—it was disgusting.”
Referring to Selig as “the man from Milwaukee,” Rodriguez seethed: “He doesn’t have the courage to come see me and tell me, ‘This is why I’m going to destroy your career’?”
To Rodriguez, New York was now “our city.” He said of Selig: “I know he doesn’t like New York. I love this city. I love being a Yankee. My daughters grew up in New York.”
This was a new A-Rod. This was the people’s champion, even if he had to write a check for said people to wave signs in his defense. Like a pro wrestler, he challenged Selig: “I thought, rightfully so, this should end with Selig on Thursday and me on Friday, under oath, put your money where your mouth is. Or we can go to Milwaukee and we can do it there.”
Rodriguez asserted that he had never purchased PEDs from Bosch, obstructed the investigation, or bought evidence. He called the arbitration process a “kangaroo court” and said if it were up to him, he’d release the hearing transcripts.
Asked where he thought he’d be on Opening Day next year, Rodriguez joked: “I’ll be either at third base, or I’ll be sitting with you, Mike.”
With Team A-Rod calling no more witnesses, the arbitration hearing was over. Arbitrator Horowitz returned to California to determine his ruling. The baseball world entered a six-week purgatory. To Rodriguez, this whole mess had been a “farce,” and declaring just that in front of the arbitrator likely hadn’t helped his effort at significantly reducing his penalty. To baseball, it had been a bruising battle. League officials set to planning a public relations–boosting television event so that if they won this thing, they might just convince fans it had been a righteous fight.
Reckoning was the course du jour. While Rodriguez awaiting his, some of the same was about to be served up in a Florida tanning salon parking lot.
• • •
Just under three weeks after the arbitration hearing ended, there was a break in the car burglary that had played a pivotal role in the case against Rodriguez. Though it was too late to help the superstar—and likely wouldn’t have moved the arbitrator anyway—the development bolstered the claim that Gary Jones may have played a role in the theft of Biogenesis records from Porter Fischer’s car nine months earlier.
It was also further evidence that MLB officials might have known that they had purchased stolen documents.
What had first appeared to be a simple smash-and-grab in a parking lot had turned into the most heavily scrutinized break-in since Watergate.
The detective who caught the case, Terrence Payne, and the department’s lone media specialist had been besieged by requests from the New York Times, Washington Post, ESPN, and the Miami Herald. Reporters wanted crime scene photos, witness testimony, rival outlets’ requests in order to steal their scoops; and the authors of this book had requested the detective’s full e-mail exchanges. New York magazine had given the break-in the glossy treatment in a story that included Gary Jones appearing to boast of masterminding the crime. “He didn’t know how to make money,” Jones said of Fischer’s “stupid” handling of the Biogenesis records.
The case had initially been closed without arrest, but—in what had to be a law-enforcement first—it was reopened after a reporter forwarded a copy of Alex Rodriguez’s lawsuit that alleged that MLB and Dan Mullin knowingly bought the records stolen from Fischer’s car.
On December 10, Detective Payne finally received the results from the DNA test of the blood smear found on Fischer’s vehicle. It matched the DNA of twenty-year-old Reginald St. Fleur, who Payne quickly discovere
d was an employee of Boca Tanning.
Payne found St. Fleur at the tanning salon the next day. The kid claimed he had never touched Fischer’s car and wouldn’t recognize Fischer if he “walked up that moment.”
That’s not how Fischer described it. Fischer told Payne that not only did he know Reggie, but they fist-bumped whenever they saw each other. The tanning salon lackey was charged with felony burglary. When he showed up for his arraignment, he was represented by an attorney who had been hired by the Carbones.
In Porter Fischer’s mind, it all very neatly confirmed that the Carbones and Jones had put an underling up to the robbery. “I was definitely targeted. I’m positive,” Porter Fischer told the Palm Beach Post in a story that ran the day after the arrest. “People break into cars to take stereos . . . people don’t break in to steal four boxes of files.”
Since the break-in and Jones’s sales to both Alex Rodriguez and MLB, he and the Carbones have thrown around some entrepreneurial capital. Jones cofounded a new Pompano Beach–based company offering “tanning equipment service, installation [and] sales,” according to state records. (Two weeks after its founding, his partner in the company was arrested for allegedly selling cocaine and Xanax.) Pete Carbone had incorporated Total Nutrition Weston, a supplement store in Broward County. His brother, Anthony, was planning a Boca-area cigar bar, according to business records, and had also launched his own line of protein brownies. (Oggi Velazquez hasn’t turned his own role in the many handoffs of records into a happy-ever-after. During Rodriguez’s hearings, he was arrested twice for domestic violence against his much-younger girlfriend, including allegedly attacking her with a bicycle pump. None of those charges were prosecuted.)
Fischer’s comments to the Palm Beach Post lit the fuse in the simmering relationship between the former tanning club patron and its owners. Anthony Carbone called an author of this book, offering to share e-mails that disparaged Fischer—but only if the messages would be published in Newsday the next morning. (The author declined.) Carbone then sent the author Fischer’s online mug shot from his 2007 marijuana arrest in Marion County. “Boca PD is acting on the word of this man,” he wrote. He railed on the phone about Fischer’s legal trouble with Zig-Zag, an episode he heard about from a reporter. “Let’s do a little background on this motherfucker,” Carbone demanded. “Whistle-blower? Is that what we’re calling thieves these days?”
