A-ROID

Being someone who loves baseball, I was obviously interested in hearing what Alex Rodriguez had to say to clear the air about his steroid use. So, I watched A-Rod’s news conference on Tuesday where he publicly addresses members of the media for the first time after admitting to using steroids in 2001 – 2003. I listened to every word of the news conference. I listened to A-Rod calling himself, “stupid” (four times), “naïve,” “silly and irresponsible,” and “immature.” I watched as he had arguable the longest and most ridiculous dramatic pause in the history of dramatic pauses (39 seconds). I listened as he threw his “cousin” under the bus, all but blaming him for the fact that he cheated baseball. But most importantly I watched him avoid questions left and right. So, what was my take on the whole thing? I do not believe one word he said.

Not wanting to be too judgmental with the whole thing, I gave it a day to settle and then went back and read a transcript of the press conference to see if I had a different reaction this time.

I did not. And here are some of the reasons why.

Last Monday, eight days before reporting to Spring Training in Tampa and holding this press conference A-Rod spoke to Peter Gammons of ESPN about his steroid use. Gammons asked most of the right questions, but A-Rod answered almost none of them.

The third question that Gammons asked A-Rod was, “what kind of substances did you take?” A- Rod answers:

“Peter, that's the thing. Again, it was such a loosey-goosey era. I'm guilty for a lot of things. I'm guilty for being negligent, naive, not asking all the right questions. And to be quite honest, I don't know exactly what substance I was guilty of using.”

Okay, do I believe it? Not at all. He is a 24-year-old athlete who is getting paid $252M to play baseball, he sure as hell better know what he is doing to and putting in that $252M body. Nevertheless, he answered the question. The problem with that answer is that just three minutes into his speech that he read while addressing the media on Tuesday he completely contradicted himself with this statement:

“Going back to 2001, my cousin started telling me about a substance that you could purchased over the counter in the DR [Dominican Republic]. In the streets, it's known as 'boli' or 'bole.' It was his understanding that it would give me a dramatic energy boost and [was] otherwise harmless.”

So three minutes into this news conference we now know that he has already caught himself in a lie. Nice going!

Later he was asked this:

"Just to be clear, did you know the stuff you were getting from the Dominican was steroids, and, if so, did you consider the consequences at the time?"

"I didn't think they were steroids at the time. Again, that's part of being young and stupid. It was over the counter, it was pretty basic and it was really amateur hour. It was two guys, we couldn't go outside, who couldn't ask anyone, didn't want to ask anyone. We went outside team doctors, team trainers. It was two guys doing a very amateur and immature thing. We probably didn't even take it right. Like I said in my statement, we used to do it about two times a month. I don't even know if that is proper. So when this gentleman asked me about how it affected us -- I'm not sure we even did it right to affect us in the right way. All these years, I never thought I did anything that was wrong. Perhaps, but not wrong. And come to find out bole triggered a positive test in 2003."

Let me get this straight. So, A-Rod didn’t think he was taking steroids and thinks he may have been doing the injections incorrectly, yet you did not ask the trainers or team doctors. Alex, if you did not think they were steroids and you didn’t think they were anything more then an over the counter supplement, why didn’t you ask a trainer? Why did you keep doing it (36 times over 3 seasons)? Especially if you thought you might be doing it wrong!

A-Rod also kept talking about him being so young when he did this stuff, “I was 24, I was 25. I was pretty naive and pretty young.” Since when is 24 and 25 “pretty young”?

Another thing that I find very interesting, and I noted this during the Peter Gammons interview as well. Gammons asked A-Rod about the time frame he used, saying “You're saying that the time period was 2001, '2 and '3?"

To which A-Rod responded, “That's pretty accurate.”

Pretty accurate? Pretty accurate meaning it may have been in 2000 or 2004 also, and you were not 100% sure or pretty accurate meaning it may have been since 1994 when you came into the league until last month?

Then to top that off he admits to using “Ripped Fuel” while in Seattle which is now a banned substance in MLB, but says that his best year was when he was in Seattle. Yeah, no kidding you were juicing then too apparently.

Alex did also use maybe the worst possible choice of words imaginable when he said, “I’m here to take my medicine.” No Alex, you are here because you took some medicine. Some medicine that was illegal. Nice try though.

Apparently I was not the only one who was not believing a word of the garbage that A-Rod was feeding the media, one reporter started his question with this phrase, “Alex, if I understand the story you are telling today.”

Now I know that I said I did not believe a word that came out of Rodriguez’s mouth during this whole process, but the last thing he said I thought made the most sense and I agree with 100%. His last line of the day was this, “I screwed up big time. But I think the only thing I ask from this group today and the American people is to judge me from this day forward. That's all I can ask for."

I agree and feel that everyone should do just that. Do you hear me Hall of Fame voters? Bud Selig? Baseball record keepers everywhere? A-Rod wants us to judge him from this day forward. That sounds easy enough for me. That would make his current career home run count, um…ZERO! Thanks Alex, that was the smartest thing you said.