Delivering a nice “eff you” to Sports Illustrated, New York Yankee superstar Alex Rodriguez sat down with the top baseball reporter from rival ESPN today and confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs during a three-year period beginning in 2001.
Rodriguez, who had previously denied using steroids during a nationally-televised 60 Minutes interview, made the admission to ESPN’s Peter Gammons …
“When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure, felt all the weight of the world on top of me 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 that I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.”
Back then? It was five years ago, dude.
Rodriguez says that “all my years in New York have been clean,” referring to the five seasons he has spent in pinstripes.
During the three years that he admits taking steroids, Rodriguez averaged 52 home runs a year. During his other ten seasons, in which he claims to have been clean, he hit 39 home runs a year.
As for his high-profile denials of steroid use, Rodriguez said “at the time, I wasn’t being truthful with myself. How could I be truthful with Katie Couric or CBS?”
And so the A-Roid image rehabilitation campaign begins …
By James the Foot Soldier February 9, 2009 at 7:29 pm
Was A-rod’s name in the Mitchell Report?