Alex Rodriguez files federal suit to overturn 162-game suspension

NEW YORK, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez and his legal team filed a federal lawsuit Monday seeking to overturn his 162-game suspension for using banned drugs.

The all-star third baseman named both Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association as defendants in suit in filed with the U.S. District Court in New York, alleging Commissioner Bud Selig violated baseball's collective bargaining agreement in seeking the ban.

He also claimed the union failed to represent him properly.

Arbitrator Frederic Horowitz issued a ruling Saturday reducing Rodriguez's original suspension from 211 games to 162, which in effect would prevent him from playing during the 2014 season.

The suit claims the ban should be thrown out because Horowitz showed partiality to Selig during the hearing.

Rodriguez attorney Joe Tacopina went on the offensive earlier Monday after Anthony Bosch, founder of the now-closed Biogenesis drug manufacturer and retailer, detailed Major League Baseball's case against Rodriguez Sunday in an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes."

"It's easy to be believable when you're not being asked by the interviewer from '60 Minutes' about his dealing drugs to kids, and whether that had any basis for him becoming a witness against Alex Rodriguez," Tacopina said in an interview Monday on WFAN-AM, a New York City sports radio station.

Tacopina called the interview with Bosch a "charade" and added: "We've gotten so many reach-outs from players and players' agents saying, 'How could MLB do this?'"

In the CBS interview Bosch said it was a "cake walk" to beat baseball's drug-testing system, and claimed to have administered a $12,000-per-month doping protocol for Rodriguez.

Rodriguez said Monday he would challenge Horowitz' decision, and Tacopina, speaking on WFAN-AM, said Rodriguez could file "additional actions" and defamation lawsuits based on assertions made by Bosch and MLB Chief Operating Officer Rob Manfred, each of whom appeared on the CBS program to discuss the arbitration decision.

"There were a few things that came out of that 60 Minutes' piece that ... we're going to consider. Mr. Manfred made some statements that I think he wants to reconsider, or at least we're going to evaluate," Tacopina said.