Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Howard file suit against Al Jazeera

Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard on Tuesday became the first players to take action against an Al Jazeera report that said they used HGH.

The two suits, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, accuse the network of libel and invasion of privacy.

The allegations against the athletes were made in a program that aired December 27 called “The Dark Side: Secrets of Sports Dopers”.

Major League Baseball sluggers Ryan Zimmerman and Ryan Howard became the first to sue Al Jazeera over a report linking both athletes, among others, to the alleged use of human growth hormone.

The documentary also suggested that Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning took HGH while recovering from neck surgery. Zimmerman is seeking punitive and other damages and a court order that Al Jazeera retract false and defamatory statements, according to the court filing.

Howard has reportedly filed a defamation lawsuit against Al Jazeera for the report.

Sly also named Zimmerman and Howard in the report. Sly has since recanted the story and told Al Jazeera the statements attributed to him “are absolutely false and incorrect”.

The suit calls the source is Al Jazeera’s report into question, too.

MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki shared the statement released by Howard on Tuesday regarding the lawsuit.

Ryan Zimmerman, along with Ryan Howard, continue to vehemently fight allegations. “To be clear, I am recanting any such statements and there is no truth to any statement of mine that Al Jazeera plans to air”. A New York Times report found a potential connection between Sly and Zimmerman through a company, Elementz Nutrition, that was co-founded by Sly and featured Zimmerman’s picture on its website. In a 2011 interview in Men’s Journal, football player Dustin Keller, named in the Al Jazeera report, said he worked with “Jason Riley and Charlie Sly of Elementz Nutrition to start mapping out nutrition, supplementation, training sessions and recovery sessions”.