With his chances of redemption in the court of public opinion decidedly in doubt, Alex Rodriguez is now seeking to salvage his reputation in a more formal setting.

In a civil suit filed late Thursday afternoon in the State Supreme Court for New York County, the Yankees' troubled All-Star accused Major League Baseball and its commissioner, Allan “Bud”

Selig, of engaging in “vigilante justice” in its investigation of his alleged use of performance enhancing drugs.

The league suspended Mr. Rodriguez for a record 211 games following a four-month investigation into possible links between several star MLB players and the now-defunct Biogenesis of America L.L.C. clinic in Coral Gables, Fla., which was alleged to have provided the players with injections of human growth hormone (HGH) and other banned substances.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Rodriguez's attorneys characterize the league's collection of evidence linking him to the clinic as a “witch hunt” that included, but was not limited to, tortious violation of confidentiality protections and other provisions contained within its collective bargaining agreement with the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Mr. Rodriguez's attorneys also accuse the league of improperly paying or otherwise promising to compensate witnesses who provided physical evidence and testimony against him, according to court documents, and of singling him out among other players implicated in the investigation “so as to gloss over Commissioner Selig's past inaction and tacit approval of the use of performance enhancing substances in baseball (not to mention his multiple acts of collusion), and in an attempt to secure his legacy as the 'savior' of America's pastime.”

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“Major League Baseball, Commissioner Selig and other officials at MLB have — throughout at least all of 2013 — been engaged in tortious and egregious conduct with one, and only one, goal: to improperly marshal evidence that they hope to use to destroy the reputation and career of Alex Rodriguez, one of the most accomplished Major League Baseball players of all time,” Mr. Rodriguez’s attorneys claim in the lawsuit.

In a statement released on Friday, the league called Mr. Rodriguez’s suit “a clear violation of the confidentiality provisions of our drug program, and it is nothing more than a desperate attempt to circumvent the collective bargaining agreement.”

“While we vehemently deny the allegations in the complaint, none of those allegations is relevant to the real issue: whether Mr. Rodriguez violated the Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program by using and possessing numerous forms of prohibited performance-enhancing substances, including testosterone and human growth hormone, over the course of multiple years,” the league said in its statement.