Selig: MLB didn't know about Rodriguez exemption

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Bud Selig maintains Major League Baseball had no idea Alex Rodriguez received a medical exemption from the sport's drug administrator to use a testosterone-boosting substance in 2007.

Rodriguez received a therapeutic use exemption for the otherwise-banned substance clomid, according to the book "Blood Sport: Alex Rodriguez, Biogenesis and the Quest to End Baseball's Steroid Era," which was published last week.

Clomid is prescribed for ovulation induction and has been used by men to restore the production of testosterone following a steroids cycle. The book said the exemption was granted by Bryan W. Smith, then the independent administrator of baseball's drug program.

"We did not know about it at the time," Selig said Tuesday before the All-Star game during the commissioner's annual meeting with the Baseball Writers' Association of America. "These independent people made a judgment. History proved them I guess it turned out to be somewhat wrong, but they were outstanding doctors."

Rodriguez admitted in 2009 he used a banned performance-enhancing substance while with the Texas Rangers from 2001-03.

The New York Yankees third baseman is serving a season-long ban this year after an MLB drug investigation; an arbitrator ruling on the discipline concluded there was "clear and convincing evidence" Rodriguez had used three banned substances.

Smith was the program's administrator from 2006 until he was replaced in June 2012 by Dr. Jeffrey M. Anderson.

"I probably shouldn't say this," Selig revealed, "the administrator at that time later was let go because he was too tough, as I remember."