DRUGS IN SPORT: New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez admitted on Monday he had tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003.
"I did take a banned substance. For that I'm very sorry and deeply regretful," Rodriguez told ESPN in response to a report in Sports Illustratedthat he had been one of 104 players who had tested positive that year.
Although there were no penalties for a positive test in 2003, confidential testing was conducted by Major League Baseball in agreement with the players' union to determine if random testing should be introduced in the following year.
Sports Illustratedsaid the Yankee third baseman had tested positive for a steroid and the male sex hormone testosterone.
Rodriguez, 33, baseball's highest paid player and one year into a 10-year €211 million contract with the New York Yankees, told interviewer Peter Gammons that he had cheated during his three seasons with the Texas Rangers starting in 2001 but not since.
"When I arrived in Texas in 2001 I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me to perform and perform at a high level every day.
"Back then it was a different culture. It was very loose. I was young, I was stupid, I was naive," he said. "And I wanted to prove to everyone that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.
"Although it was part of the culture back then . . . I'm sorry for that time. I'm sorry for my fans. I'm sorry for my fans in Texas.
"It wasn't until then that I ever thought about a substance of any kind and since then I've proven to myself and to everyone that I don't need any of that."
Results of the confidential testing were obtained by the government in conjunction with the investigation into the San Francisco laboratory BALCO investigation and its alleged link with Barry Bonds, the record holder for home runs.
Rodriguez, the youngest player ever to hit 500 home runs and who with a total of 553 is on course to overtake Bond's record of 762, said he did not even know the name of the drugs he was taking.
"It was such a loosey-goosey era, that I'm guilty for a lot of things. I'm guilty for being negligent, naive, not asking all the right questions," he said. "To be quite honest, I don't know exactly what substance I was guilty of using."