A-FRAUD 'COMES CLEAN' OR WHATEVER

On Saturday, it was reported that Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez was on the list of baseball's cheaters.

To the credit of the cheating, adulterous fraud, Rodriguez responded in a hurry, giving an interview to ESPN's Peter Gammons on Monday. In it, he admits to using performance-enhancing drugs.

"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 exclusive interview in Miami Beach, Fla. An extended interview will air on SportsCenter at 6 p.m. ET.

"Back then, [baseball] was a different culture," Rodriguez said. "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.

"I did take a banned substance. For that, I am very sorry and deeply regretful."

Check out the video.



I'm not about to "credit" someone for coming clean about cheating. Rodriguez cheated, and Rodriguez deserves to be thrown under the same bus everyone else was. He was already one of the best players in baseball.

He foolishly took $252 million from the Rangers, even though he had to understand it would destroy the team's budget, making it impossible for them to field a competitive pitching staff. Then, all these years after taking that initial contract, he has the audacity to blame it for his decision to take banned substances.

If Rodriguez was some unintelligible dope, I would understand his inability to comprehend reality past dollar signs. Instead, he always has come across as one of the more articulate and well-spoken players in the game. Clearly, he knew what he was doing, and he did it anyway.

Perhaps, at some point in July, it will hit Rodriguez like a ton of bricks. He'll realize that he's spending another summer being the second most-popular player on the left side of the Yankees' infield. At that point, we can only hope he understands the utter stupidity behind what he did in Texas, and how he ruined what was a great opportunity to be part of the rebuilding of baseball's integrity.

Instead of helping rebuild it, he'll forever be looked at as one of the people who tore it down to begin with.