It's Alex Rodriguez's word against Major League Baseball's as the two parties traded accusations in the player's arbitration case.

A New York Times report said on Monday evening that Rodriguez failed a test for prohibited stimulants in 2006, a charge that has not been disclosed previously. Rodriguez himself is trying to appeal a 211-game suspension after he was linked to a clinic in Florida that is the center of the doping scandal which rocked the baseball world.

Rodriguez was given a 211-game suspension on Aug 5 but was allowed to play out the rest of the season, at least until the arbitrator makes a decision to sustain or to overturn the penalty. The hearings are spread over eight hearing dates; the next hearing is scheduled on Nov 18.

Sources also said that MLB investigators also tried to coerce individuals connected to Rodriguez and 13 other players who were implicated in the Biogenesis case. Bruli Medina Reyes, a trainer for Rodriguez, told the New York Times, revealed that investigators told him that others who refused to cooperate were facing federal cases and threatened to curtail his opportunities to work with players employed by MLB teams.

For his part, Rodriguez maintains that he did not test positive for any banned substances since the league started giving out penalties for those who did. In a statement made by one of his lawyers, Rodriguez accused the MLB of leaking medical information about players, saying that the league violated the confidentiality agreement of the arbitration proceedings. It was the first time that the embattled slugger's camp had been made aware of the alleged results.

The 3-time AL MVP also accused the MLB of using extreme tactics, such as using an investigator to initiate an inappropriate relationship with a nurse at Biogenesis.

Major League Baseball denied that they were the source of the 2006 story, saying that the league never discloses test results publicly.