The allegations, rumors, and confirmed facts surrounding New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez have only gotten weirder in the 36 or so hours since the first Biogenesis related PED suspension was handed down to Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers.
As most are aware, A-Rod is one of the highest profile baseball players linked to Anthony Bosch and the Florida-based clinic. Ever since the story first broke several months ago, the speculation about A-Rod’s involvement, his use of PEDs and his previous admission for same following the release of the Mitchell Report, and the length of his suspension has been the subject of speculation throughout the baseball world.
As news starts to surface and we delve deeper into the situation, cracks begin to show.
Rodriguez has of course been out of action after off-season hip surgery and it was thought that his return to the Yankee lineup was imminent. After playing numerous minor league games on a rehab assignment, he was scheduled to come off the disabled list and re-join the Yankees on Monday. However, just before coming off the disabled list, the Yankees announced that Rodriguez had suffered a quadriceps strain and sent him for an MRI. Doctors diagnosed the injury as a grade 1 strain, and Rodriguez’s time on the DL and rehabbing at the Yankees Tampa-based facilities continued.
As convenient time as any for an injury, right?
Bob Nightengale of USA Today has claimed that Major League Baseball is attempting to get Rodriguez to essentially do a sort of “plea deal” similar to Braun; admit that he used performance enhancing drugs, and take a suspension. Nightengale cited sources close to Rodriguez, who have stated that he will not take any deal, will appeal any suspension given to him, and that he believes his own employer, the New York Yankees, are working against him to have MLB give him a longer suspension or find any way out they can from paying the near $100 million that remains on Rodriguez’s contract.
Today we also learned that Rodriguez has hired Dr. Michael Gross, who examined the MRI and Rodriguez’s hospital records, and has stated that the slugger is not injured. He told WFAN, a radio station in New York, “To be perfectly honest, I don’t see any sort of injury there.” Gross later added that Rodriguez was “100 percent” and ready to return to the lineup.
The unsaid accusation here by a doctor personally hired by Rodriguez, is that the Yankees are keeping him out of the lineup in order to continue having their medical insurance pay 80-90% of A-Rod’s massive deal (depending on the reports). In order for this to happen, Rodriguez must be declared physically incapable of performing for the remaining 4 years and $86 million on his contract, after this season.
And so we thought we had it all figured out, but as seems to be the case in all things Biogenesis and A-Rod, the case has taken yet another turn.
The New York Daily News has now come out with the following bombshell:
“According to a source with close knowledge of the situation, however, the Yankees have never heard of Gross, and do not believe Gross examined the same MRI looked at by Ahmad on Sunday after Rodriguez complained for the second straight week of quad tightness.
Further, said the source, New York Presbyterian Hospital did not release results from the MRI it conducted on Rodriguez and the Yankees do not believe he was examined by Gross.”
Further, it appears that Gross is the Co-Founder and Medical Director of the Active Center for Health & Wellness, in Hackensack, New Jersey. According to the clinic’s own website, the top program offered by the place is “Anti-Aging & Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy.” Interestingly enough, the Biogenesis clinic was founded on the same practices of Anti-Aging and Hormone Replacement Therapy.
And to top it all off, Dr. Gross’ clinic has earned a reprimand by the New Jersey Attorney General earlier this year for “failing to adequately ensure proper patience treatment involving the prescribing of hormones, including steroids.”
We’ll let all that information sink in, and let you, the reader, draw your own conclusions. Suffice it to say though, this story has more plot twists than a daytime soap opera.
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