A-Rod sues Yankees team doctor, NYC hospital

NEW YORK (AP) Alex Rodriguez has expanded his assault on the baseball establishment with a lawsuit accusing the Yankees team physician and a New York City hospital of mishandling his medical care during the 2012 Major League Baseball playoffs.

In a suit filed late Friday in New York Supreme Court in the Bronx, lawyers for Rodriguez say he was given an MRI on Oct. 11, 2012, that revealed an injury to his left hip joint. The suit said Yankees physician Dr. Christopher Ahmad did not inform him of the tear and cleared him to continue playing, and accused them of medical malpractice.

As a result, the suit claims, Rodriguez further injured himself and also "sustained great pain, agony, injury, suffering, disability, hospitalization, as well as mental anguish and emotional distress." The suit also names New York-Presbyterian Hospital as a defendant.

"We are not commenting due to pending litigation," hospital spokeswoman Myrna Manners said on Saturday.

Ahmad did not respond to a telephone message seeking comment.

The hospital and Ahmad may claim that the proper forum for Rodriguez's complaint is either Workman's Compensation or the grievance process of MLB and the MLB Players Association.

The union is attempting to overturn the 211-game suspension given to Rodriguez by MLB on Aug. 5 for alleged violations of its drug agreement and labor contract. The penalty was stayed pending a grievance filed by the union, and a hearing began on Monday before arbitrator Fredric Horowitz, who is chairman of the three-man arbitration panel that includes a representative of management and the union. Barring a settlement, a decision is not expected until winter.

Also on Saturday, The New York Times reported on its website that Rodriguez's lawyers at Reed Smith sent a letter to the players' association General Counsel David Prouty on Aug. 22 asking that a union lawyer be replaced as his representative in the grievance by one of his personal attorneys. The lawyers also criticized union head Michael Weiner, who is battling a brain tumor, for comments he made about the case.

Rodriguez hit .120 (3 for 25) with no RBIs during the 2012 postseason, then had left hip surgery in January that kept him from rejoining the Yankees until August.

One of Rodriguez's lawyers, Joseph Tacopina, said in August the Yankees "put him out there in that condition when he shouldn't have even been walking, much less playing baseball."

The Yankees maintain that Rodriguez had been complaining at the time only of a problem with his right hip, not the left one. Rodriguez had right hip surgery in 2009.

Rodriguez filed the medical lawsuit a day after suing MLB and commissioner Bud Selig in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, accusing them of orchestrating a "witch hunt" intended to force him out of MLB as part of its investigation of the now-closed Biogenesis of America anti-aging clinic in Florida.

Both suits came during the first week of hearings on a players' association grievance seeking to overturn the suspension. Thirteen other players accepted suspensions this summer, including former National League MVP Ryan Braun, who was suspended for Milwaukee's final 65 games of the regular season.

Rodriguez spokesman Ron Berkowitz declined comment on both the latest lawsuit and the letter.