BASEBALL: Alex Rodriguez has admitted to and apologised for using performance-enhancing drugs, the latest development in what the New York Yankees superstar called the biggest challenge of his life.
In an interview conducted with ESPN, Rodriguez acknowledged using performance-enhancing drugs from 2001 to 2003, when he was a member of the Texas Rangers.
“I did take a banned substance,” Rodriguez said during the interview, which was held in Miami Beach, Florida. “For that, I’m very sorry and deeply regretful.”
The interview, which was broadcast shortly after it was recorded, came two days after Sports Illustrated reported that Rodriguez tested positive for two anabolic steroids in 2003.
The report stated that Rodriguez’s name appeared on a list of 104 players who tested positive during a survey conducted by Major League Baseball.
Rodriguez, whose voice quivered at times during the interview, said that he used performance-enhancers in order to fulfill the expectations attached to the record 10-year, US $252million deal he signed with the Rangers in December 2000.
“When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure,” he said. “I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me, and I needed 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. I wanted to prove to everyone I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.”
Neither Major League Baseball nor the players’ association have not commented on Rodriguez’s confession. The Yankees and Rangers also have not offered comments.
Rodriguez, 33, had previously been considered the contemporary standard for baseball purity and was viewed as the most likely candidate to challenge Barry Bonds’ all-time home run record.
Unlike Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Jose Canseco - oversized sluggers who had tarnished baseball’s record books due to steroid use - Rodriguez had been seen as a ‘clean’ player whose accomplishments were the results of talent rather than chemistry.
But Rodriguez, who already has 553 career homers and trails Bonds by 209, has seen his legacy take a devastating hit over the past 48 hours.
Baseball’s highest-paid player, Rodriguez is preparing to enter the second season of a 10-year, US$275million contract with the Yankees, the most lucrative deal in baseball history. He asserted that he turned to performance-enhancers after receiving the initial 10-year deal - then the sport’s richest contract.
Sports Illustratedreported that Rodriguez tested positive for testosterone and Primobolan, another anabolic steroid.
Rodriguez, however, claimed he did not know the exact nature of the substance he took. The 12-time All-Star never disclosed how he acquired the performance-enhancers.
“It was such a loosey-goosey era,” he said. “I’m guilty for a lot of things. I’m guilty for being negligent, naive, not asking all the right questions. To be quite honest, I don’t know exactly what substance I was guilty of using.”
Penalties for positive tests in MLB were introduced in 2004 and there is no suggestion Rodriguez took any banned substance after 2003.
“It’s been a rough 15 months here for me,” Rodriguez said. “I was stupid for three years. I was very, very stupid. The more honest we can all be, the quicker we can get baseball to where it needs to be.”
Rodriguez revealed that he stopped taking performance-enhancers in 2003 spring training, when he injured himself.
“It wasn’t a real dramatic day,” he said. “I started experimenting with things that, today, are not legal, that today are not accepted. Ever since that incident happened, I realised that I don’t need any of it.”
Rodriguez’s personal life also has become a popular topic in the New York media, which has thoroughly chronicled the third baseman’s difficult divorce and reported relationship with pop icon Madonna.