Batter Up (To No Good)

If what ESPN's reporting Tuesday evening is true, then the sport of baseball's about to take another Steroid Era fastball to the junk with no cup, as a major provider of performance-enhancing drugs is ratting out his all-star clients.

Major League Baseball will seek to suspend about 20 players connected to the Miami-area clinic at the heart of an ongoing performance-enhancing drug scandal, including Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun, possibly within the next few weeks, "Outside the Lines" has learned. If the suspensions are upheld, the performance-enhancing drug scandal would be the largest in American sports history.


Tony Bosch, founder of the now-shuttered Biogenesis of America, reached an agreement this week to cooperate with MLB's investigation, two sources told "Outside the Lines," giving MLB the ammunition officials believe they need to suspend the players.

One source familiar with the case said the commissioner's office might seek 100-game suspensions for Rodriguez, Braun and other players, the penalty for a second doping offense. The argument, the source said, is that the players' connection to Bosch constitutes one offense, and previous statements to MLB officials denying any such connection or the use of PEDs constitute another. Bosch and his attorneys did not return several calls. MLB officials refused to comment when reached Tuesday.

Bosch is expected to begin meeting with officials -- and naming names -- within a week. The announcement of suspensions could follow within two weeks.

Gonna be a weird All-Star game with no actual all-stars playing, considering about a score of them are about to get dump trucks dropped on them from Bud Selig's office.  And A-Rod getting 100 games out?  That's pretty much lights out for his career.

Not that I'm all broken up about any Yankees getting the hook for a century or anything.