news just broke minutes ago ...
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3894847
His voice shaking at times, Alex Rodriguez met head-on allegations that he tested positive for steroids six years ago, telling ESPN on Monday that he did take performance-enhancing drugs while playing for the Texas Rangers during a three-year period beginning in 2001.
Rodriguez
"When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day," Rodriguez told ESPN's Peter Gammons in an interview in Miami Beach, Fla. "Back then, [baseball] was a different culture. It was very loose. I was young, I was stupid, I was naïve. I wanted to prove to everyone I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.
"I did take a banned substance. For that, I'm very sorry and deeply regretful."
Rodriguez's admission comes 48 hours after Sports Illustrated reported that Rodriguez was on a list of 104 players who tested positive for banned substances in 2003, the year when Major League Baseball conducted survey tests to see if mandatory, random drug-testing was needed in the sport.
Sources who know about the testing results told SI that Rodriguez tested positive for testosterone and Primobolan, an anabolic steroid. In his ESPN interview, Rodriguez said he did not know exactly which substance or substances he had taken. In 2003, there were no penalties for a positive result.
"I am sorry for my Texas years," the New York Yankees third baseman said. "I apologize to the fans of Texas."
Rodriguez, who joined the Yankees for the 2004 season after a trade from Texas, said "all my years in New York have been clean." He also said it felt good to be honest about what he's done in the past.
"The more honest we can all be, the quicker we can get baseball [back] to where it needs to be," he said.
Rodriguez said he was told by Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the MLB Players' Association, that he might, or might not, have tested positive in the 2003 survey. A source told ESPN on Saturday that Rodriguez knew he had failed the test.
"I had never heard anything since," he said. "Whatever I was experimenting with in Texas might have been OK."
Rodriguez also said of his 2007 interview with Katie Couric on "60 Minutes," when he denied ever using steroids, that "at the time, I wasn't being truthful with myself. How could I be truthful with Katie Couric or CBS?
sons I say props to A-Rod for admitting it. this is the best way to confront it because you will NOT win that battle by lying. say what you want about A-Rod, but he will be one of the best (if not the best) player to ever play baseball whenever it is all said and done. He used steroids from 01-03 .... that didn't stop him before 01 or after 03 from dominating as he has. I hope he comes out this season with another 50 plus home run year.
I'm not sure what else A-Roid could have said. With the history of guys confronting these kinds of allegations, it's clear that the best path in the public's eye is admitting to having done it, as Andy Pet te did, instead of insisting that it wasn't true, as Clemens did. A-Roid's problem, however, is that he's a much, much, much bigger figure in the game than Pet te ever was and his mammoth statistical accomplishments will be universally impugned (as they should be).
He screwed up a few years ago and deserves all that he's going to get for that. But at least he owned up, unlike Bonds and Clemens, and he might have salvaged a very tiny bit of his legacy by doing that.
I'll say this: I've argued with a baseball-loving friend for years about who the best pure player in the game has been in this generation, taking into account PED usage. In rethinking that argument at this juncture, I'm inclined to believe that it's Junior Griffey, though at this point I wouldn't be shocked (but I would be disappointed) to find out that he's dirty, too.
Griffey wouldn't surprise me either .... eventually (and soon), the rest of those 104 names will be released as well.
+1
to A-Rod for coming clean
A-Fraud is at least smart enough to know that he has a positive test out there and he has his head in the noose in that regard. Might as well come clean.
How ed up and shady is MLB? I seem to remember that these tests were for survey purposes only and that the player's name wasn't going to be associated with the test as the samples were going to be by number only. Obviously MLB lied to the players and the player's association about the terms of that "survey". What a bunch of bags, I hope Bud and his cronies crash and burn too.
MLB did not betray the players. the government got their hands on the report and obviously the government can do whatever they want with it.
There was never supposed to be a report to begin with because this was supposed to be a sample survey only where the player's names were not associated at all with the sample. This was only a survey to see if a certain percentage of players were doping to warrant testing. Obviously MLB didn't do the number system that they had said they would and instead tied each player's name to the sample - which is the only way anyone would know that A-Fraud specifically tested positive.
I don't see anyone going to the Hall of Fame from this generation of ball players. Holy everyone with any stats worth mentioning has been busted. The true golden boy is Jeter, I bet he even has been juiced up.
He lied about using it during that era before. Now he admits to the era where he got caught. Why believe him now? For all we know, he just switched to HGH.
I stopped caring a while back - baseball records have lost all meaning with me forever. But I don't see why people are so quick to believe/excuse/explain certain players. Not to mention that once a guy has directly and plainly lied about an issue once, it's just simple gullibility to believe him after that.
I went back and read the article again. It says that the government is battling the player's association about those lab results. Apparently the court will decide if the government is en led to the entire list.
My question is this. Even if the court sides with the player's association, does it prevent the leaking of information or is there still the possibility of leaking another name, especially if its a big name player?
Wouldn't it be nice the people buying the seats just stop. Stop watching on t.v. Stop buying merchandise. Completly stop supporting baseball until they answer the questions of steroids. Start with telling us who the other 103 players were that were busted in 2003 with Alex. I am not a big baseball fan anymore, I see it on the news, catch a few games from time to time durning the season. Watch playoffs, perhaps 20 percent of the prime time games. Half of the world series. I would watch more but I see the players that cheated. I don't know who is telling the truth.
I have a hard time watching the NBA right now. That cheating ref is in the back of my mind. Wondering if there were more. That story was buried and I have not seen Sterns presences like I have seen in the past. I cut my games down I watch on t.v becuase of it and have not seen any games this year live. First time in 10-15 years I have not gone. Its hard watching a game when you don't know if it is on the up and up.
Last edited by jack sommerset; 02-09-2009 at 09:10 PM.
It wasn't the league that kept the samples.
For some reason one of the top brass with the player's association hung onto the samples. Dumb, dumb, dumb move.
Props for coming clean. Sad day, though. The top two homerun hitters of all-time will be juicers.
He didn't come clean. If he had come clean, he would have said, "...and when I stopped using steroids on account of the MLB starting to test for them, I swtched to HGH."+1
Will Serena Williams be the next to admit she used PED?
Smart move by A-Rod he had to do this. Lying only makes everyone dig deeper and deeper. At least he took the big bullets out of everyone's guns, by coming clean..
hit the nail on the head
kinda funny that the very thing that "saved" baseball after the strikes, all those years of home run king going back and forth, were all based on a shame. unless you were paying attention to how players were getting jacked over night.
i personally don't care if they use them. just if it's illegal its illegal, you get punished. if its legal, oh well.
I disagree........he had every opportunity to come clean in the past and did not do so. now that he was completely backed into a corner with no way out, he admits the truth. He is a coward and a fraud.+1
BTW......I see Clemens going out like Pete Rose........completely denying anything for decades.
LOL, right like you or anyone would admit to taking steroids, or anything if you didn't have too.. If someone asked if you took a banned substance and they have no way of proving you did, what are you gonna say?? He did the right thing by just coming clean when they had him cold, instead of that idiot Clemens, looking like a fool to everyone..
But you don't know that he came clean. For all we know, he switched to HGH or something else or just got better masking materials after 2003. He lied directly to the question just one year ago, why believe him now?
However, I'll give him props for not coming up with some lame excuse about recovering from an injury or having a doctor's prescription.
He did the right thing and admitted it, but it's not like we didn't see this coming.
Even though it pissed me off that he trashed the Rangers, he was never that big a while in Texas. I actually felt bad for him today. Now on the other hand, if Mark Teixeira ever gets exposed as a steroid user, I'll laugh my ass off and probably have a party celebrating it.
as posted earlier, A-Roid switched to HGH when roids started to be harder to get away with. If Lance Armstrong is racing again, and Serena is still serving 130+ mph, and in the Olympics they still are BREAKING records that were set by PED users (think about that) then YOU CAN BE SURE THERE ARE PEDS THAT ATHLETES ARE USING AND GETTING AWAY WITH IT. This includes HGH (which can't be tested) and other synthetic forms of steroids.
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