An employee deprived of a $4,000 investment that's what started the chain of events that led to Major League Baseball's suspensions of 13 players, including three-time most valuable player Alex Rodriguez.

Rodriguez, whose career accomplishments would otherwise make him a lock for the Hall of Fame, was suspended Monday for the remainder of this season and all of 2014. That suspension is set to take effect Thursday. Rodriguez has said he will appeal, and he would be allowed to play during that process.

The other players, a group that includes All-Stars Nelson Cruz of Texas, Jhonny Peralta of Detroit and Everth Cabrera of San Diego, all agreed to accept 50-game suspensions.

Porter Fischer is the man who provided the flash point for what became the biggest drug-related suspension in sports history. Fischer was a 40-something customer seeking help in bulking up his muscles when he met Tony Bosch, founder of an anti-aging clinic based in Coral Gables, Fla

Fischer eventually went to work as a marketer for Bosch, and later invested $4,000 in his company with, Fischer says, the promise of a 20% return that would come in weekly payments.

When those payments stopped last year the clinic, Biogenesis, closed in December Fischer started looking more closely into Bosch and Biogenesis. Among the information he turned up was a link between Bosch's father, Pedro, and former Dodgers star Manny Ramirez.

Ramirez had received a 50-game suspension from MLB in 2009 when he tested positive for HCG, a female fertility drug a substance Fischer had used. Fischer also found a connection between Bosch and then-suspended All-Star outfielder Melky Cabrera, who had tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug.

"That's when I started documenting," Fischer told the Village Voice earlier this year. "Look, if [Bosch] doesn't pay me, there's going to be collateral damage."

In January, using records Fischer pulled from Biogenesis, Miami New Times reported that Rodriguez and Cruz were among a large group of athletes whom Bosch had supplied with performance-enhancing substances. Most notably, Fischer provided four notebooks filled with handwritten notes by Bosch that identified clients, drug doses and payments.

The New Times report said Rodriguez was mentioned in Bosch's files from 2009 through 2012, and provided this excerpt: "There, at number seven on the list, is Alex Rodriguez. He paid $3,500, Bosch notes. Below that, he writes, '1.5/1.5 HGH (sports perf.) creams test., glut., MIC, supplement, sports perf. Diet."

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What spurred MLB investigation? Disgruntled Biogenesis employee