Investigators for Major League Baseball in the coming weeks will question the Los Angeles Dodgers’ team doctor, Neal ElAttrache, after the disclosure that he supported a top Ultimate Fighting Championship star’s use of performance-enhancing drugs as he recovered from an injury, according to two people briefed on the matter.
The investigators want to understand why Dr. ElAttrache backed the decision of the U.F.C. star, Conor McGregor, to use banned drugs — a move that distressed antidoping officials who saw it as McGregor trying to exploit a loophole in the drug-testing system. Investigators also want to make sure that Dr. ElAttrache never supported baseball players’ use of banned drugs, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing an ongoing matter.
Dr. ElAttrache did not return a text message seeking comment on Thursday.
The move to interview Dr. ElAttrache will put the commissioner’s office in the unusual position of questioning a doctor who is the physician for one of baseball’s leading teams and an outsize figure in the game. The Dodgers have won back-to-back World Series, are favorites again this year and are considered among the best-run franchises in sports.
Dr. ElAttrache is one of the country’s most prominent sports doctors, having treated numerous baseball, football and Hollywood stars, including Shohei Ohtani, Tom Brady and Leonardo DiCaprio. Of the 29 baseball players who have won the Cy Young or Most Valuable Player Awards in the past 10 years, Dr. ElAttrache has operated on, treated or examined 18 of them.
He is also the team doctor for the Los Angeles Rams, who won the Super Bowl in 2022.
A spokesman for the N.F.L. did not return an email seeking comment on whether the league planned to investigate the doctor.
McGregor broke both bones in his lower left leg during a U.F.C. bout in 2021. The New York Times reported Thursday that after Dr. ElAttrache oversaw surgery to repair the damage, he sent McGregor to a specialist who prescribed banned drugs.
“I purposely wasn’t involved with his evaluation by the consultant nor with prescribing medication,” Dr. ElAttrache told The Times. He said the “expert opinions” McGregor received showed “he could optimize his chance of solid union and healing of his fractures.”
Dr. ElAttrache said he then wrote a letter supporting McGregor’s decision to seek a special exemption that would allow him to use performance-enhancing drugs without facing a penalty from the U.F.C. for trying to gain an unfair competitive advantage.
The Times reported that McGregor never received the exemption but came out of a testing pool for fighters who were being screened for performance-enhancing drugs and then used the drugs while outside the testing pool.
Ten sports doctors, antidoping experts, sports officials and trauma surgeons interviewed by The Times said that they were surprised to learn of Dr. ElAttrache’s support of McGregor’s application and that they could not recall any example of an athlete receiving an exemption to use a performance-enhancing drug to help recover from a broken bone.
Major League Baseball is unaware of any allegations that Dr. ElAttrache supported baseball players in using banned drugs, according to the two people. But officials decided to look into the matter given his prominence in the sport and to rule out any potential wrongdoing, they said.
During the so-called steroid era in Major League Baseball, which stretched from the mid-1990s through 2007, the sport ran into issues with players exploiting exemptions to use banned drugs.
In one of the most glaring examples, the slugger Alex Rodriguez applied for — and was granted by the doctor overseeing Major League Baseball’s drug testing program — a therapeutic use exemption to use the powerful steroid testosterone in 2007. When Rodriguez’s therapeutic use exemption was revealed years later, it stained Major League Baseball as it appeared that the sport had supported one of its top sluggers — who had tested positive for a banned substance in 2003 — in breaking the rules.
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