Rodriguez outside MLB Offices on October 2.
Embattled New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez filed a lawsuit against M.L.B. late Thursday night in which he alleges the league purchased the cooperation of Anthony Bosch, head of the now-defunct Biogenesis anti-aging clinic that purportedly supplied Rodriguez with banned substances.
The ball player accuses the league of engaging in a “witch hunt” to force him from the game. Rodriguez is currently in the process of appealing his 211-game doping suspension—the longest PED-related ban in baseball history.
Rodriguez’s attorneys claim that an investigator working for Major League Baseball paid $150,000 for stolen records related to the 38-year-old ballplayer. As a result, the lawsuit states that the league engaged in “tortious interference” that could negatively impact Rodriguez’s current contracts and potential future earnings. Baseball commissioner Bud Selig was named as a defendant in the suit.
Rodriguez appealed his lengthy suspension immediately after it was announced on Aug. 5, and played in 44 games for the Yankees in the latter half of the 2013 season. If the ban is upheld, Rodriguez would not be eligible to return until the 2015 season.