'Young and stupid' A-Rod was injected by cousin

[February 18, 2009]  TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Over and over, Alex Rodriguez blamed himself, using the phrase "young and stupid" as he tried again to explain where he went wrong.

"Amateur hour," he called it.

The slugger who might someday become baseball's all-time home run king remembered more details about performance-enhancing drugs Tuesday, saying his cousin repeatedly injected him from 2001-03 with a mysterious substance from the Dominican Republic.

"I didn't think they were steroids," the New York Yankees star said. Later, he admitted, "I knew we weren't taking Tic Tacs."

Making his second public attempt to explain a 2003 positive drug test while with Texas, baseball's highest-paid player described a clumsy scheme in which a cousin persuaded him to use "boli" -- a substance he said the cousin obtained without a prescription and without consulting doctors or trainers.

Rodriguez said the cousin, whom he wouldn't identify, told him it would cause a "dramatic energy boost."

Yet, when asked to explain why the secrecy if he didn't think it was an illegal substance, Rodriguez revealed he had a pretty good idea he was doing wrong.

"Look, for a week here I've been looking at people to blame," he said, "and I keep looking at myself at the end of the day."

Some, including Yankees radio broadcaster Suzyn Waldman, had trouble believing him.

"Do I believe that Alex Rodriguez, who won't have a Snickers bar or a cookie, let his cousin inject him with something that he didn't know what it was? I find that really hard to believe," she told WCBS radio in New York, the team's flagship station.

She wasn't alone.

"I wonder if his cousin even existed," Kansas City pitcher John Bale said. "That was my first thought. Is his cousin made up?"

Rodriguez's assembled teammates gave him the eye, especially when he turned to them to apologize and offer thanks for their support.

Rodriguez paused for 37 seconds, searching for the right words. He looked side to side, blinked several times, bit his lip and took a sip of water. Only then did he finally look up to face captain Derek Jeter & Co.

"Thank you."

Jeter sat with his arms crossed, joined in the front row by Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada. More than 20 players in all were there, along with manager Joe Girardi, general manager Brian Cashman and co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner.

Posada left during the question-and-answer session as Rodriguez offered new details. Other players filed out when the news conference ended and quickly went to their cars without speaking with reporters.

"If this is Humpty Dumpty, we've got to put him back together again, to get back up on the wall," Cashman said.

Rodriguez was the third Yankees player in five years to hold a drug-related, apology-filled news conference, following Jason Giambi (2005) and Pettitte (last year). Cashman said the confessionals should serve as a deterrent when viewed by young players.

"This public bloodletting of individual stars, the fallen stars, anybody who witnesses what these individuals have to go through after the fact, say, 'You know what? I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be in the chair, I don't want to be the one -- the poster child for the problem with the game, and on every newspaper across the country and every talk show."

The three-time AL MVP has spent years denying drug use. He spoke at the Yankees' spring training camp 10 days after Sports Illustrated reported his name was on a list of 104 players who tested positive during baseball's anonymous drug survey. The substances were Primobolan and testosterone, SI reported.

Rodriguez first admitted to using banned substances in an ESPN interview last week. On Tuesday, his account varied during the news conference, in which follow-up questions were not permitted. All questions were cut off after 32 minutes.

At first he said his cousin injected him "twice a month for about six months during the 2001, 2002 and 2003 seasons." Later he said, "That may be once a month, it may be three times a month."

"I'm not sure what the benefit was," he said. "When you take any substance or anything, especially in baseball, it's half-mental and half-physical. ... I certainly felt more energy, but it's hard to say, hard to say."

Signed to a $275 million, 10-year contract that has nine seasons left, Rodriguez is expected by many to break Barry Bonds' home run record of 762, after hitting 553 already. Rodriguez sidestepped whether he thought he had cheated and whether he agreed with commissioner Bud Selig's assessment that he had shamed the sport.

It wasn't clear what exactly "boli" was. Doping experts said their best guesses were Primobolan, Dianabol or Boldenone.

Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez said substances that are illegal in the United States are easily available over the counter in Latin American countries, such as Venezuela (where K-Rod is from) and the Dominican Republic.

"You have to be careful. But at the same time, you're not stupid. You know what you're going to buy and what you're not going to. It's a reality," he said.

Milton Pinedo, president of the Dominican Federation of Sports Medicine, said Primobolan could not be sold in pharmacies in the Dominican Republic and would have had to have been bought on the black market.

Rodriguez also said that during the early years of his career in Seattle, he had used the stimulant "Ripped Fuel," which contained ephedra. That substance was restricted to prescription sales by the U.S. government in 2004 and classified as a banned drug of abuse by baseball in 2005.

Girardi said that although Rodriguez had not apologized to him personally during a half-dozen conversations in the past 10 days, no apology was needed.

"I saw tears in his eyes. I saw remorse. I think he was disappointed that it's come to this," Girardi said.

Cashman said he thought Rodriguez was in enough mental anguish that he would consider him the same as players rehabilitating physical injuries, such as Rivera, Posada and Hideki Matsui.

"This thing is not dying," Cashman said. "The story is going to be with him for a long time. It will be with him forever."

[Associated Press; By RONALD BLUM]

AP Baseball Writer Mike Fitzpatrick in Port St. Lucie, Fla., AP Sports Writers Eddie Pells and Travis Reed, AP freelance writers Mark Didtler, Alan Eskew in Surprise, Ariz., and Dionisio Soldevila in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, contributed to this report.

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