Alex Rodriguez Suspended For 2014 Season Amid Doping Scandal, Player to Fight Ban
Alex Rodriguez's drug suspension was trimmed to 163 games from the original 211 games by arbitrator Fredric Horowitz. The ruling was announced on Saturday, Jan. 11. However, the New York Yankees third baseman will still seek to stop it in court.
Rodriquez took to his Facebook account to release his reaction to the ruling: "The number of games sadly comes as no surprise, as the deck has been stacked against me from day one. This is one man's decision, that was not put before a fair and impartial jury, does not involve me having failed a single drug test, is at odds with the facts and is inconsistent with the terms of the Joint Drug Agreement and the Basic Agreement, and relies on testimony and documents that would never have been allowed in any court in the United States because they are false and wholly unreliable."
The 211-game penalty was given by Commissioner Bud Selig on Aug. 5 last year after the investigation of the Biogenesis of America anti-aging clinic, which was suspected of distributing banned performance-enhancing drugs.
In a statement, the Major League Baseball said: "While we believe the original 211-game suspension was appropriate, we respect the decision rendered by the panel and will focus on our continuing efforts on eliminating performance-enhancing substances from our game."
Meanwhile, in CBS's 60 Minutes, Anthony Bosch, founder of former South Florida anti-aging clinic Biogenesis, said that Rodriquez was careful about his use of performance-enhancing drugs. Bosch even revealed that Rodriquez was afraid of needles and that he paid Bosch $12,000 per month to provide him with a selection of banned drugs including testosterone and human growth hormone. .