ARod admitted in an interview with Peter Gammons using performance enhancing drugs from 2001 - 2003. I have heard this interview will be on ESPN Radio soon...

Smart move.

Likely saw the route Roger and Barry went and decided to go the other way to try and help his image.

just heard the same thing on tirico's show.

crazy stuff, looking forward to hearing the whole interview later. he's doing the right thing though by admitting it instead of fighting it. but his admission of using for such a long period is much different than pettite, for example.

showing a part of the interview now

Let's review. Barry & Roger repeatedly deny any wrongdoing and they are hated for it. Giambi & Pettitte admit steroid use, aplogize, and are forgiven. Only an idiot would have told A-Rod to publicly deny it.

I'll give him props for admitting to it. He could have been a dewsh and said it was unfair to release his name and no one else and make no comment. He sounded honest to me in the clip I heard.

An interesting stat is that he did average about 12 home runs more per season during that 3 years span. Pretty ridiculous.

At least he was honest. I've been suspicious of him for a long time. As much as I try to fight it, this actually makes me a little bit sympathetic towards him.

MLB should really just come out and admit that the past twenty to thirty years have been full of roids, list the guys that did it, and move on. We could finally put a label on the era and move on.

It's not like people think that baseball is the only sport guilty of this. Heck, the NFL is still loaded with suspicious supplements.

Breaking news header now at ESPN.com...

I agree...smart move on his part...Go the Andy Pettite route and fans will be a lot more forgiving...

the "Pettite route" is to lie about how much you used and the reasons therefore.

Rodriguez is doing something no one has done: an unqualified admission.

Actually, he's taking the Michael Phelps route and blaming youth.

Which is absolutely great, BMX. I respect the hell out of him for doing it, even though he had a built in reason for "being stupid" with the $250M contract.

His numbers from his other ten seasons (not 2001-2003) look to be about where I'd think they should be for a guy like him not on 'roids. So far, it all seems to match up.

[This message has been edited by Dallasag02 (edited 2/9/2009 1:57p).]

chewy: good point.

i agree its a great move on his part.

perhaps he should have taken the giambi approach, and just admitted he made mistakes, and not gotten into specifics. i think he will be judged much more harshly for saying he used for 3 years. even if giambi did, he's getting off the hook much easier now.

i think giambi's stache also helps....

Many people rightly bashed Giambi for being so vague. We always wanted these guys to come out and be specific. Also, note that he is only specifying use during his Texas stint. Is it fair to single out the Rangers? In the end the Rangers could take most of the blame. If anyone cares to dig deeper (doubtful), they could expose the Rangers culture as being the main problem and paint ARoid as a victim. The MLB has a lot at stake to protect the face of the league.

wow, he did it during his 3 years with the Rangers

incredible, Arlington was the center of the baseball 'roid universe

America as a whole is eager to forgive when a person admits their wrong, but when someone tries to lie about what seems obvious, they're eager to lynch as well.

ARod had no choice but to come clean. He'll be forgiven by the fans, but maybe not by the baseball writers come voting time. I suspect he'll be forgiven then as well though.

even though a-rod's HR numbers are down by 12 since texas, he's also playing 81 of his games in arguably the best pitchers' park in the AL.

Major props to ARod for coming forward

eh, i really don't credit him for anything here. he got caught...that's why he's apologetic. damn, he's already misremembering what drugs he took. BS

he's a cheater. and he's a liar. i won't believe any of the crap he says

i have no problem with him not knowing exactly what he took. he was probably told by some traininer "take this" they didn't get into the technical names i imagine.

but its true that he didn't exactly "come forward"

agree BMX. it's the trainers of these guys that are the mad scientists behind all of the doping.

I enjoy listening to former investigator TJ Quinn, but he's so far off on this point. He is saying both of these drugs are very specific, and an experienced doper would know what's going on if he had these in his system.

That's all good and well, but that doesn't mean A-rod was at all. It comes down to "hey (insert trainer name here), what can I use to help me with X, Y, and Z"

trainer then takes care of everything and says "i'll have it in your locker"

and if you listen to what most players are saying(and radomski/mcnamee) that's basically how it happened. Some players chose to learn more about it, some just said "get it for me" and went with it. Considering it took this long for A-Rod to get caught, it sounds to me like was the kind of player that had his trainer handle everything.

I don't expect him to be able to name everything he was using or what he used.

another point...dont' discredit him for not naming names of trainers, where he got it, who else did it, etc... that's not for him to say. He's out there admitting to HIS use of it. There is still an unspoken code in baseball(what's left of it at least) and if he doesn't want to break the code, fine. I'd actually dislike the situation more if he just started outing trainers, GM's, coaches, players who all knew or used. It's up to them to come out and admit it, or wait until it gets leaked. Regardless, it's off A-Rod's conscience and those guys are still living with it.

[This message has been edited by J Peterman (edited 2/9/2009 3:20p).]

gottleib is about to have ausmus on the show, to be the first current player to comment. wonder what his thoughts will be as a good guy, but still someone part of the union.

quote:

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trainer then takes care of everything and says "i'll have it in your locker"

and if you listen to what most players are saying(and radomski/mcnamee) that's basically how it happened. Some players chose to learn more about it, some just said "get it for me" and went with it. Considering it took this long for A-Rod to get caught, it sounds to me like was the kind of player that had his trainer handle everything.

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Remember the big fiasco when A-Rod's favorite clubhouse assistant was fired in 2003? That story may be worth bringing back up to see how steroids was a factor.

Here comes the interview

A-Rod is doing a helluva job of damage control...I think he's coming off in about as good a light as possible.

I bet someone finds a way to trace this back to George W. Bush... you wait and see it happens with everything.

He went way out of his way again and again to say that this *only* occurred while at Texas. He emphasized that steroids were a total non-issue in Seattle, that he never even knew anyone who did steroids at Seattle.

But he didn't implicate anything about the Rangers team or culture there...he only blamed himself.

If the Rangers were a relevant team back then or today I could see a media swarm occurring, but I don't think anyone cares that much to investigate what was going on in Arlington during the early 00's. I'm sure most of the other teams had a culture of cheating as well.

I bet Hank Blalock was a champion of steroid use.

can't do much better than he did in that interview.

that was pretty solid overall.

again, I respect that he wasn't going to drag other names in it, just admit to his own troubles. Let those people live with it, or wait until their name surfaces.

I agree with Gammons, he'll probably sleep like he hasn't slept in years now.

MVP season for A-Rod in 09?

okay, here's the math:

he has 553 career home runs. subtracting the 3 years in Arlington his career total drops to 397 career home runs

he did hit a lot of HR's in those years 52, 57, 47

I have an issue that he seemed to be apologizing more for being "naive" and "not asking enough questions", almost implying that he didn't know what he was taking was a steroid -- and I don't buy that at all.

And does anyone really believe that this solely went on in '01-'03, or was that just a convenient time frame to throw it on, knowing that the proof came from those years.

I don't see any reason to believe, with the drug testing being the joke that it was/is, that after the '03 season A-Rod stopped.

In no way do I believe he stopped in '03 or whenever he said he did.

[This message has been edited by Mr. Cub (edited 2/9/2009 6:54p).]

I'll buy that he didn't use steroids until he got to Arlington. I've always felt like steroids were more prevalent with certain teams than others. That's why some guys say stuff like 80% of players are on roids, because 80% of their team, the guys they saw everyday, we're on roids. I don't remember much about the Seattle teams of the late 90s, but I do remember seeing teams like the Rangers and A's and thinking, "Damn, those guys are huge! (That's what she said)"

I highly doubt though, that he got traded to the Yankees and just all of a sudden decided to quit steroids. The Yankees are one of the teams that seem to have had a culture of roid use, so I don't see why he would have quit then.

I think he chose to blame everything on his time with the Rangers because he knows people won't really care. He doesn't have to deal with people in NY saying he threw his team under the bus, or anything like that. I don't think he really enjoyed his time in Arlington, so he doesn't have a problem with throwing that organization under the bus.