The New York Yankees are fighting Alex Rodriguez's lawyer's assertion that the team misled the third baseman about the extent of his injuries in hopes he would not be able to play again.
"Alex should put up or shut up," New York Yankees team president Randy Levine said to ESPNNewYork.com in a telephone conversation Saturday afternoon, daring Rodriguez to reveal his medical records to the public.
Levine's comments came hours after Rodriguez's new lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, accused the Yankees and Major League Baseball (MLB) commissioner Bud Selig of conspiring to keep him sidelined and nullify the third baseman's - with New York on the hook for $86 million of the $275 million they signed him for back in 2007.
Tacopina alleged that Levine had told Dr. Bryan Kelly, who was to perform hip surgery on the Yankee slugger, "I don't ever want to see him on the field again." Tacopina also accused New York of hiding the results of his MRI during the 2012 playoffs that showed the third baseman was playing with a torn hip labrum.
"[Levine] is always a very big talker, but he is going to be humbled eventually," said Tacopina. "He is acting in a way that if his bosses and superiors and the Steinbrenner family have any sense of decency, if they are true to what the Yankees' heritage is, they would be appalled with how their president is acting. We will put up."
Levine refutes Tacopina's claim that the Yankees tried to sabotage Rodriguez's recovery from hip surgery.
"All of our treatments of Alex were of the highest caliber and based on his own choices," said Levine, who added New York would be willing to release transcripts of all phone calls between Rodriguez, the team, and its doctors.
MLB executive vice president Robert Manfred told the New York Times that their investigation against Rodriguez stemmed from his involvement with the Biogenesis case, in which the company founder, Tony Bosch, agreed to cooperate with MLB using his records as the linchpin of the league's case against 13 major league baseball players - including Rodriguez and former Most Valuable Player award winner Ryan Braun - accused of using performance enhancing drugs. Manfred made it clear that Rodriguez was treated the same way as the other targets of the investigation.
"The bottom line on this," said Manfred. "I have yet to see Alex Rodriguez or any of his representatives say that Alex Rodriguez didn't use P.E.D.'s. They've adopted a strategy to make a circus atmosphere of irrelevant allegations."
Levine also has disputed the claim that the Yankees were working with the league to find a way to void Rodriguez's contract, calling the claim "silly."
"The Yankees didn't initiate this investigation," said Levine. "And Major League Baseball has not kept us advised of the progress of this investigation. We've been kept in the dark."
Rodriguez was suspended by the commissioner's office through the end of the 2014 season - a total of 211 games (including regular season and possible postseason), potentially losing out on $33.5 million of his salary.
"The process is being perverted when they act the way they do to make their case. They are pushing Alex to his limit," said Tacopina. "The legacy of George Steinbrenner would be horrified. This is the New York Yankees. This isn't some thug-culture club."