Alex Rodriguez, as Promised,|Sues Baseball and the Players Union

MANHATTAN (CN) - As promised, Alex Rodriguez today sued Major League Baseball, the Commissioner's Office and the Major League Baseball Players Association, claiming he was unfairly suspended for 211 games - reduced to one full season - for allegedly using banned drugs, "without a positive test result."

A-Rod's problems with baseball and the Yankees have been thoroughly chronicled in the press.

Anthony Bosch, the founder and former owner of the Biogenesis clinic, told "60 Minutes" in a show broadcast Sunday, that he personally injected Rodriguez with "testosterone, insulin growth factor one, human growth hormone, and some different forms of peptides," according to a transcript of the show.

The transcript continues:

"Scott Pelley: All of them banned?

"Anthony Bosch: All of them banned.

"Scott Pelley: And he knew that.

"Anthony Bosch: He - yes, he - he did.

"Scott Pelley: And you knew that?

"Anthony Bosch: And I knew that.

"Scott Pelley: Was Rodriguez injecting himself with these substances?

"Anthony Bosch: Alex is scared of needles. So at times - he would ask me to inject.

"Scott Pelley: You've injected him?

"Anthony Bosch: Yes.

"Scott Pelley: Personally?

"Anthony Bosch: Personally."

In his 42-page lawsuit, with 37 pages of attachments, however, Rodriguez challenges the league's "unprecedented 211-game suspension ... without a positive test result."

Commissioner Bud Selig imposed that suspension on Aug. 5, 2013.

Rodriguez responded by filing a grievance "challenging this wholly unjustified suspension and the baseless and unprecedented allegations upon which it was premised," he says in the lawsuit.

After 12 days of arbitration, the arbitration panel on Saturday (Jan. 11) reduced "the unprecedented suspension to a still wholly unjustifiable suspension of 162 games," Rodriguez says.

He asks the court to vacate the arbitration award, hold the players' union "responsible for its breaches of the duty of fair representation owed to Mr. Rodriguez prior to and during the grievance process, and to hold MLB responsible for its violation of the collectively bargained agreements between MLB and the MLBPA by imposing a suspension upon Mr. Rodriguez without just cause."

Rodriguez also accuses the arbitration panel's leader, Fredric Horowitz, of "manifest disregard of the law."

If the season-long ban is upheld, the Yankees might be able to duck paying Rodriguez his $25 million paycheck for the next season.

Regardless of how the legal process turns out, it has been evident for some time that the Yankees and many of their fans have lost patience with Rodriguez, 654 home runs or not.

Rodriguez seeks declaratory judgment that the players' union breached its duty to fairly represent him, that Major League Baseball breached collective bargaining agreements, and he wants the arbitration award vacated, and "other and further relief as the court deems just, proper and equitable."

He is represented by James McCarroll with Reed Smith, and Joseph Tacopina with Tacopina, Seigel & Turano.

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