Earlier this week, the New York Times’ Michael S. Schmidt reported Major League Baseball cut a check for documents from Miami wellness center Biogenesis that would implicate a number of players in what Miami New Times has suggested are rather obvious purchases of performance enhancing drugs. Though I took Schmidt’s claim that Alex Rodriguez  (above, left) had designs on the very same documents as some hint of a bidding war, the Village Voice’s Allan Barra finds all of this a little, well, sleazy (“what kind of ‘businessman’ works as an intermediary between the investigative unit and the players under investigation by that unit? The only kind of businessmen I know who would do that are the kind of guys who are usually known by police by other kinds of names”). (link swiped from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)

Here’s one juicy scenario, suggested, of course, by the Daily News, about what might happen: “Rumors have spread through the league and its players that A-Rod possesses a list of names and documents that he has either leaked to the media to deflect attention to himself or destroyed them before anyone can see them.”

According to the source, Rodriguez “also knows all the players who are on the list.” Are we talking possible extortion here, or maybe A-Rod figuring that if he goes down, he’s going to take everyone else with him? The possibilities are fascinating.

I checked with my own source about those rumors and sources, and he told me that those rumors and sources all started with the Daily News.