Rodriguez’s Lawyer Calls Baseball’s Offer a ‘Trap’

The Yankees were off on Monday, but there was no letup in an increasingly contentious battle between the team's highest-paid player, Alex Rodriguez, and seemingly the rest of the baseball world.

After a weekend filled with fresh allegations from a lawyer representing Rodriguez, sharp retorts by the Yankees and Major League Baseball, and Rodriguez's heroics against the rival Boston Red Sox, Monday morning brought yet another twist.

Appearing as a guest on NBC's "Today," the lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, reiterated to one of the show's hosts, Matt Lauer, that he would like nothing more than to discuss Rodriguez's drug-testing history and related matters, but that he was prevented from doing so by the confidentiality clause in baseball's testing program.

Lauer then seemed to catch Tacopina off guard by producing a letter that Major League Baseball had arranged to have hand-delivered to the show. In the letter, the league offered to waive the confidentiality clause with respect to Rodriguez's entire history under the drug program, in effect challenging Tacopina to do the same.

Tacopina declined to sign the waiver offer, and he later issued a statement calling the letter a "publicity stunt" and a "trap." He said such a waiver on his part would require the players union to be part of the agreement.

In response, Rob Manfred, an executive vice president with Major League Baseball and the person who wrote the letter to Tacopina, said in a statement that "the players association has never stood in the way of an individual player publicly disclosing his own drug-testing history." Manfred said baseball would be "more than happy" to add a line to the waiver for the union to add a signature alongside Tacopina's.

The letter that was delivered to "Today" and later released by baseball was notably pointed in its language, saying the proposed waiver would allow Rodriguez and Major League Baseball to disclose information and documents that would extend beyond his suspected links to a South Florida anti-aging clinic. The now-closed clinic, Biogenesis, was at the center of an investigation that led to a 211-game suspension for Rodriguez, which he is now appealing.

The letter said it would seek full disclosure of all drug tests conducted on Rodriguez under baseball's program; all documents and messages relating to Rodriguez's treatment by Anthony Bosch, who operated Biogenesis and is now cooperating with baseball's investigation; all documents related to the treatment that Rodriguez has acknowledged receiving from Anthony Galea, a Toronto-based doctor who pleaded guilty in 2011 to smuggling human growth hormone into the United States; and all treatment Rodriguez has received from Victor Conte, whose Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative was at the heart of a drug scandal involving a number of prominent athletes.

The letter also said it would seek disclosure of documents relating to baseball's contention that Rodriguez attempted to obstruct its Biogenesis investigation.

In connection with that issue, ESPN reported on Sunday that Rodriguez had paid Bosch's lawyer a $25,000 retainer in February to assist in Bosch's legal defense. A representative for Bosch's lawyer, Susy Ribero-Ayala, confirmed the payment in a statement to ESPN. Ribero-Ayala did not return a message seeking comment Monday.

The ESPN report said Rodriguez tried to make a second payment to Bosch of $50,000, which the lawyer declined to accept.

In an interview on CNN on Monday, Tacopina said there had been a "consulting relationship" between Biogenesis and Rodriguez. In January, however, a Rodriguez representative denied that the player had been advised by Bosch.

Rodriguez's associates remained on the attack, furnishing medical reports that addressed a point of contention between him and the Yankees. Rodriguez and his representatives said that the Yankees hid information from him about a tear in his left hip during last year's playoffs and allowed him to keep playing ineffectively in an apparent effort to discredit him.

The Yankees responded that they were not made aware of the left hip problem until weeks later, at the same time Rodriguez learned about it.

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