MLB plans Biogenesis clinic lawsuit

The New York Times reports that Major League Baseball plans to sue Anthony Bosch and others associated with the Biogenesis clinic in Miami, which has been reputed to be a distributor of performance-enhancing drugs to ballplayers. The suit will allege that Biogenesis, which is now closed, damaged MLB by providing some of its biggest stars with drugs, and the league will try to recoup money.

Imagine: It's 1985 and baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth announced he is suing the country of Colombia for providing cocaine to Dave Parker and Keith Hernandez. That's how preposterous the contemporary suit is.

MLB doesn't really want money and it has no way of showing that PEDs have harmed the sport — the industry's bottom line of $8 billion is enough proof of that. What MLB wants is access to clinic records it believes will help them discipline players such as Ryan Braun of the Milwaukee Brewers and Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees. Their names reportedly are among some 90 mentioned in Biogenesis records, some of which have been made public through media investigations.

Braun is the only player known to successfully overturn a positive PED test, and MLB doesn't want him to get away with it any longer. But the sport doesn't have subpoena power and hasn't had any luck building a case.

Michael S. Schmidt of the Times writes:

So now baseball is trying a new tactic. A lawsuit, if allowed to proceed, would give the sport the ability to subpoena records from the clinic, which is now closed, and compel depositions. Some of the information uncovered could then conceivably be used by baseball to justify disciplinary actions against players.

Legal experts described the lawsuit strategy as innovative but said it remained to be seen how successful it would be.

I don't even play a lawyer on the internet, but the term "innovative" isn't often associated with successful lawsuits. Courts seem to prefer words such as "precedent." Chances are, another word associated with this suit will be "dismissed."

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