Director of Cocaine Cowboys Focuses on Alex Rodriguez and Biogenesis Steroid Scandal in New Documentary Screwball
09.08.2018

Director of Cocaine Cowboys Focuses on Alex Rodriguez and Biogenesis Steroid Scandal in New Documentary Screwball

Billy Corben has moved on from cocaine to anabolic steroids in his latest feature-length documentary. The director of “Cocaine Cowboys” has turned his attention to the 2013 Biogenesis of America steroids in baseball scandal as the subject of of the 2018 documentary film “Screwball”.

Corben and Alfred Spellman produced “Screwball” through their Miami-based media production company Rakontur. Screwball is scheduled to make its world premier at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) between September 6th and September 16, 2018.

The now-defunct Biogenesis anti-aging clinic in South Florida was owned and operated by Anthony “Tony” Bosch. Bosch called himself “Dr. T” and pretended to be a medical doctor even though he had no medical training whatsoever. Bosch pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute a Schedule III controlled substance (testosterone) in October 2014.

Bosch provided anabolic steroids, human growth hormone (hGH), growth hormone releasing peptides and various other performance-enhancing drugs to numerous high-profile Major League Baseball players including New York Yankee’s Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez and Milwaukee Brewers’ Ryan Braun. Thirteen MLB players linked to Biogenesis were suspended for over 50 games.

Rodriguez received the longest suspension when the MLB Office of the Commissioner suspended him for 211 games in July 2013. The suspension was effectively reduced to 162 during Rodriguez’s appeal. Nonetheless, it was still the longest suspension in MLB history.

Rodriguez never tested positive for prohibited steroids or PEDs after the Biogenesis scandal broke. MLB cited non-analytical evidence linking Rodriguez to Biogenesis and the slugger’s “use and possession of numerous forms of prohibited performance-enhancing substances, including testosterone and human growth hormone, over the course of multiple years” as the basis for the unprecedented suspension.

Corben and Spellman produced the highly-acclaimed 2006 documentary film “Cocaine Cowboys”. Cocaine Cowboys explored the bloody Miami drug wars during the 1970s and 1980s that accompanied the rise of cocaine in the United States.

Screwball attempts to capture the same on-the-ground first-hand perspective that characterized Cocaine Cowboys. It does this through the use of interviews with journalists, law enforcement officers, attorneys and steroid dealers linked to and familiar with the Biogenesis steroid scandal.

“We’re thrilled to be exporting Florida Fuckery to Canada — tariff-free!” Corben told journalist Tim Elfrink of the Miami New Times.

Leave a Comment