THE BIOGENESIS SCANDAL

Author

Matthew Garringer
December 07, 2023

Good evening. This is Dead Legends. The daily newsletter that loves baseball as much as the ‘86 Mets loved to party.

Let’s dive in.

Today’s story is about an incident that sent a fake doctor to prison and got some of baseball’s biggest names in suspended.

It seems like every 10-15 years, the MLB has a major drug scandal.

After the Pittsburgh Drug Trials, we had BALCO, and then the Mitchell Report dropped and exposed the entire league’s steroid problem.

Most recently, there was the biogenesis scandal; which triggered investigations from Florida police, the DEA, and MLB itself.

Tony Bosch was at the center of the whole thing.

Bosch was the founder and chief operator of Biogenesis of America, a now-defunct anti-aging clinic in Miami, Florida.

In his 40’s he went back to school and got his degree from Central America Health Sciences University.

With his bootleg degree, he came back to South Florida and started his business.

On the surface, Bosch's clinic was represented as a provider for hormone replacement therapy, weight loss programs, and other anti-aging treatments.

In reality, it was a hub for PEDs, with Bosch acting as a supplier and adviser to athletes seeking to enhance their performance.

Even though Tony wasn’t a real doctor, his dad was.

He let Tony use his prescription pad to prescribe testosterone, HGH, and HCG to basically whoever wanted it.

In ‘07, Bosch was introduced to Manny Ramirez, and Manny became his first high-profile big league client.

He traveled with Manny to give him a specific protocol of PED’s throughout the day, and reportedly even read Manny bedtime stories when he couldn’t sleep.

As strange as it was, this shit really worked.

The year Manny started working with Bosch, he hit .332, dropped 32 bombs, had a .430 OBP, and finished 4th in the MVP vote.

But these things never last forever.

In 2009, Manny was busted for PED’s, and Bosch’s name was made public.

The DEA started investigating him, but never charged him with anything.

You’d think that might’ve killed Tony’s business, but actually, business was better than ever after Manny got busted.

He got even more big-league clients and many parents started bringing their High School ballplayers to Bosch’s clinic.

Bosch admitted that he gave at least 18 kids as young as 15 PED’s.

In 2011, the dominos started falling.

Bosch’s clients were getting popped for PED’s left and right.

Ryan Braun got busted.

Then Bartolo and Melky Cabrera both tested positive in the same week.

Melky went as far as making a fake website to avoid suspension.

As he started losing MLB clients, he needed money, so Bosch got a $4,000 “investment” from one of his clients, a guy named Porter Fischer.

He never paid Fischer back, and the guy went apeshit.

He stole all of Bosch’s files and leaked them to the Miami New Times.

The files exposed all of Bosch’s MLB clients and caused MLB to launch their own investigation.

MLB tried to buy the files from Fischer for $125,000, but he was afraid that he’d be in danger if he sold the files to them.

It appears that the league knew Tony’s files would implicate A-Rod, and they wanted to make an example out of him.

When Porter wouldn’t sell the files, they tried a new method.

While he was tanning, a “mysterious criminal” broke into his car and stole the files.

They then sold the files to MLB for $125,000.

But there’s a plot twist.

The thief taped the transaction and sold the footage to A-Rod so he’d have leverage on MLB - so they were basically at a stalemate.

Then in 2014, Bosch went on 60 minutes and exposed A-Rod.

The league suspended Rodriguez 211 games; of course he appealed the suspension.

Eventually, he got it lowered to 162 games, but it was still the longest suspension in MLB history at the time.

Overall, 15 players were suspended as a result of the leaked files.

Bosch was sentenced to four years initially, but eventually got his sentence reduced by 16 months.

He’s a free man now, but he doesn’t work with athletes anymore.

BASEBALL TRIVIA

STRANGE NAMES

If you're just joining us, we play this game every day where we try to find the weirdest names throughout baseball history.

Why? Don't ask us, it's just something we like to do.

If you've been rocking with us for awhile now, you know what time it is.

Today's winner is:

Bibbs was a solid hitter who played with legends like Andy Cooper, Turkey Stearnes, and Satchel Paige on the Kansas City Monarchs.

He was a two-sport athlete at Indiana State University and made the all-star team once during his seven-season professional baseball career.

After playing pro ball, he became a high school coach at Crispus Attucks in Indianapolis.

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