Blood Sport: A-Rod and the Quest to End Baseball's Steroid Era

Blood Sport: A-Rod and the Quest to End Baseball's Steroid Era

The definitive and dramatic story of the Alex Rodriguez and Biogenesis scandal, written by the reporters who broke and covered the story. “ Blood Sport is riveting...a tragicomedy filled with characters straight out of a Carl Hiaasen novel.”— The Washington Post The effects of the Biogenesis case—the biggest drug scandal in the history of American sports—are still being felt today. Fifteen Major League Baseball players were suspended, including Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez. Ten men were indicted in federal court. And a new MLB commissioner was elected based on his role leading the response to the case. Now, Tim Elfrink—who broke that first story in the Miami New Times —joins forces with Pulitzer Prize finalist investigative reporter Gus Garcia-Roberts to tell the shocking full story behind the headlines. Blood Sport blows the lid off the most expensive scandal in the history of the game, and now includes an epilogue revealing the stunning aftermath of the scandal and its effects for years to come. Praise for Blood Sport “A rollicking new book that reads like tragicomic noir fiction.”—Huffington Post Live “Riveting...The story of Rodriguez’s alliance with Bosch—and their eventual falling-out, with disastrous consequences for both—is a tragicomedy filled with characters straight out of a Carl Hiaasen novel: fake doctors, ex-cons, small-time grifters and a shady tanning-bed repairman whose theft of some Biogenesis documents set in motion much of the legal drama that ensued.”— The Washington Post “Tim Elfrink’s stories have brought down Alex Rodriguez, shut down the clinic that provided A-Rod performance-enhancing drugs, led to the record-breaking suspension of more than a dozen major leaguers and helped to usher in a new, seemingly cleaner era for baseball.”— The Omaha World-Herald “ Blood Sport: Alex Rodriguez, Biogenesis, and the Quest to End Baseball’s Steroid Era is full of juicy bits.”—CBS New York “Once again, baseball proves to be more scandalous than a telenovela!”—Perez Hilton “Earnest, well researched, well written...go for the book.”— The Epoch Times TIM ELFRINK is the managing editor of the Miami New Times . He lives in Miami. GUS GARCIA-ROBERTS is an award-winning investigative reporter for Newsday . He lives in Brooklyn. CHAPTER ONE A Cousin with a Rocket Launcher The crisp ping of metal on rubber and hard cork echoed across the neatly trimmed fields just outside Birmingham, Alabama. A few dozen spectators in lawn chairs arched their necks in unison, tracking a softball arcing across the sky. Tony Bosch was twenty-seven years old, with a preppy mop of black hair over thick eyebrows. He’d worked for years and spent thousands of dollars waiting for this moment. When the final out of the game landed harmlessly in the outfielder’s glove, every fielder sprinted toward a second-base celebratory pile-on. It was 1990, and the Miami Meds were national softball champions. Bosch hadn’t played an inning of the tournament. But like an extremely low-rent George Steinbrenner striking deals for beer-bellied all-stars, he was the man who’d made this title happen. Ever since he’d grown up obsessed with baseball in Queens, New York, Bosch had struggled to find a way into the game. Too short and slow to stick as a player, he’d long since abandoned his dream of smacking game-winning homers like his childhood New York Mets heroes Tommie Agee and Cleon Jones. But here, in the intensely competitive late ’80s and early ’90s Miami softball circuit, where coke dealers funded teams like glamour projects and major league stars including Jose and Ozzie Canseco showed up to bash slow-pitched leather grapefruits over the wall, Bosch had found his niche. He’d turned his medical supply company—Miami Med Marketing, Inc.—into one of the biggest sponsors in the local league, drawing top-notch league players and even a few former college stars to wear nylon tributes to his beloved Mets. On weeknights after work and weekend mornings before games, he’d obsess over statistics and watch video of his upcoming opponents. He’d fill notebooks with his neat, all-caps handwriting, plotting out who would pinch-hit, how he’d arrange his fielders for each batter, and what situational matchups he’d expect. On game day, he’d be on the bench commanding the field. Every once in a while, if the game was a blowout, he might even pencil in his own name and take an at-bat or two. “For Tony, this was absolutely a passion. He put in just an incredible amount of time and money,” says Roger De Armas, a lifelong friend and Tony’s partner in Miami Meds, both the company and the softball team. “He was super excited to win it all.” Sure, it was far from Major League Baseball, but on that night in Alabama, softball brought Tony a joy as unalloyed and pure as he’d felt as a kid watching the 1969 Miracle Mets hustle their way to a World Series ring. Anyone who knew Tony knew that he truly loved baseball. But moments like this,