A-Rod apologizes to Rangers owner Tom Hicks

[February 18, 2009]  OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Alex Rodriguez made a personal call to apologize to Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks after the slugger's admission that he used banned substances while playing for the team from 2001-03.

Hicks told The Associated Press on Tuesday evening, hours after Rodriguez publicly apologized for his misdeeds in a press conference at Yankees spring training, that Rodriguez called him last week.

"He didn't ask me to accept his apology, and I didn't," Hicks said. "But he did apologize."

Hicks said the two men talked for about 25 minutes, and he described Rodriguez as "embarrassed."

When the Rangers signed Rodriguez as a free agent in December 2000, they gave him a then-record $252 million, 10-year contract. That made A-Rod the highest-paid player in baseball, and in an interview last week with ESPN, Rodriguez blamed the pressures of that deal for his decision to use performance-enhancing drugs.

Though Hicks heard personally from Rodriguez and saw the player's news conference Tuesday on television, the Rangers owner -- who last week described himself as "personally betrayed" and deceived -- still didn't sound convinced that the truth has been fully revealed.

"Just because Alex Rodriguez said today that he started using steroids in 2001 doesn't make me necessarily believe that," Hicks said. "This is still early in the process and I don't know what the truth is."

After Rodriguez's admission last week, when he acknowledged a Sports Illustrated report that he was among 104 names on a list of players who tested positive for steroids in 2003, Hicks said he'd had general conversations about steroids with A-Rod while with the Rangers. Hicks even asked the player then if he had used them, and Rodriguez said he had not.

"I think we'll peel off an onion and get more and more truth over time," Hicks said Tuesday night. "And we'll find out when he started and how long he used and whether it's the same as he says now, or changes his story down the line. We'll just wait and see. ... My intuition and my stomach tells me this is just getting started."

At Yankees spring training Tuesday in Tampa, Fla., Rodriguez admitted his cousin repeatedly injected him with a substance from the Dominican Republic. He blamed his 2003 positive test on being young and naive.

During his conversation with Rodriguez last week, Hicks expressed his displeasure that Rodriguez "kind of threw the Texas Rangers under the bus, and he said that wasn't his intention at all."

"He told me he certainly didn't mean to infer that there was anything going on in the Texas Rangers clubhouse that was any different than any clubhouse in baseball," Hicks said. "And I know that's the truth."

Rodriguez led the AL in home runs in each of his three seasons for the Rangers, including 52 in 2001 and 47 in 2003, when he won the first AL MVP award. Texas traded him to the Yankees before the 2004 season because of A-Rod's growing frustration with losing. The Rangers were last in the AL West each of his three seasons.

When they spoke last week, Hicks encouraged Rodriguez to come clean.

"I said you have a chance to positively change millions of kids' lives if you'll come out and tell the truth," Hicks said. "When you made your mistakes, why you did it, when you started, what you've learned from it and why you'd do things differently if you could."

Without elaborating, Hicks said Rodriguez indicated that was his intention.

"He needs to tell young people all the details about the mistakes he made," Hicks said. "He had a God-given talent that was good enough to be the best player in baseball anyway."

[Associated Press; By STEPHEN HAWKINS]

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