NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez, the world's highest-paid sportsman, was suspended for a record 211 Major League Baseball (MLB) games on Monday for his involvement in one of American sport's biggest doping scandals.

Another 12 players, including three All Stars, were handed 50-game suspensions following a Major League Baseball investigation into a Florida clinic accused of supplying them with performance enhancing drugs.

Rodriguez was suspended until the end of the 2014 season in what is the longest doping penalty ever handed out by MLB. He stands to lose about US$36 million (S$46 million) if he serves the full suspension, but immediately lodged an appeal against the ban.

Under MLB rules, he is allowed to play until his appeal has been heard. So hours after his suspension was announced, he played his first game of the season for the Yankees, and was booed by spectators each time he came to the plate.