MLB suing a South Florida clinic for allegedly providing performance-enhancing drugs to players

Major League Baseball filed a lawsuit Friday seeking damages against the South Florida clinic Biogenesis of America and its operator, Anthony Bosch, for allegedly providing performance enhancing drugs to players, the pro sports league said.

According to reports and the MLB suit, filed in Florida's Miami-Dade County, the clinic reportedly supplied banned performance enhancing substances to a number of current and former pro baseball players such as ex-Boston Red Sox Manny Ramirez.

"We believe we have a legitimate legal claim against the defendants and we intend to pursue it vigorously," said Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball's executive vice president of economics and legal affairs.

The Miami New Times published a story in late January saying more than a dozen professional baseball players and other athletes were named in records kept over several years by the Biogenesis clinic. CNN was not able to independently obtain the documents the newspaper said it based its reporting on.

One of those players named by the publication is Alex Rodriguez, a 37-year-old New York Yankee who ranks fifth in home runs in major league history. Shortly after the New Times article came out, ESPN.com published a story quoting unidentified sources as describing how Bosch allegedly went to Rodriguez's waterfront Florida mansion when summoned and injected the star player with performance-enhancing drugs, or PEDs.

Rodriguez's camp subsequently released a statement denying any connection to the Biogenesis' clinic's owner while disputing the aforementioned reports.

"The purported documents referenced in the story -- at least as they relate to Alex Rodriguez -- are not legitimate," the player's public relations agent said.

New Times reported earlier this month that it refused Major League Baseball's request for records that contributed to its story.

CNN has been unable to reach Bosch or others involved in his clinic. After the New Times story broke, a CNN crew went to the Coral Gables, Florida, address of the Biogenesis clinic and found its offices vacant.