A-Rod admits steroid use

Slugger was doping during Texas years

Baseball's hall of shame gained a new superstar yesterday as Alex Rodriguez outed himself as a drug cheat, admitting he muscled up with illegal steroids from 2001 to 2003, when he unleashed the greatest three-year power surge of his career.

Backed into a corner by a blockbuster report Saturday that he tested positive in 2003 for anabolic steroids, the three-time American League MVP acknowledged plying himself with illicit performance-enhancing substances after signing a 10-year, $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers in 2001, then the richest deal in baseball history.

While juiced on steroids, Rodriguez hit .305 while averaging 52 home runs and nearly 132 RBIs over the three years, all with the Rangers. He led the league in home runs all three years and was the MVP in '03.

"I was young, I was stupid, I was naive," he told ESPN's Peter Gammons. "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, and for that I'm very sorry."

Rodriguez waited less than 48 hours after Sports Illustrated's damaging report before he confessed his wrongdoing and began rehabilitating his image. In doing so, he borrowed a page from Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte, who regained much of their popularity after admitting they used banned substances.

His legacy will remain tainted by the admission, however, as he pursues Barry Bonds's all-time home run record.

"I feel terrible for guys like Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Willie Stargell, and Frank Robinson who set all those records, and now these guys who have cheated are surpassing them," said former Red Sox pitcher John Burkett, who faced Rodriguez from 1996 to 2003. "It's a shame."

In the latest blow to baseball's battered reputation, Rodriguez said he succumbed to the temptation of illegally ingesting drugs during the sport's "loosey-goosey" steroid era in which cheaters were prevalent. His admission was particularly disturbing to baseball fans who believed Rodriguez would restore the integrity of Aaron's all-time home run record, which Bonds broke in 2007.

"I have millions of fans who will never look at me the same," Rodriguez mused emotionally in the ESPN interview, adding that he would be "really [ticked] off" if he were one of them.

His angriest detractors include Rangers owner Tom Hicks, who questioned whether Rodriguez was truthful about the breadth of his steroid abuse.

"I feel personally betrayed; I feel personally deceived by Alex," Hicks told reporters in a conference call. "He assured me that he had far too much respect for his own body to ever do that to himself . . . If he's now admitting that he started using when he came to the Texas Rangers, why should I believe that it didn't start before he came to the Texas Rangers?"

President Barack Obama said Rodriguez's admission further harms baseball's reputation and sends an unfortunate message to children about integrity in sports.

"It tarnishes an entire era," Obama said.

Rodriguez, 33, whom the Rangers traded to the Yankees after the 2003 season, was among 104 players who tested positive for steroids when Major League Baseball conducted a confidential survey in '03, Sports Illustrated reported. The magazine said Rodriguez tested positive for Primobolan and testosterone, a powerful combination of muscle enhancers, though Rodriguez skirted questions from ESPN about the specific substances and how he obtained them.

He cast himself in 2003 as youthfully unsophisticated and a victim of his own hubris - a burning desire to reign as the game's premier player.

"I'm guilty for a lot of things, 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," he said. "Whatever it [was], I feel terribly about it."

But he remembered this: "When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I felt like I had all the weight of the world on top of me to perform, and perform at a high level every day . . . I felt I needed a push to get me to the next level."

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, who has acknowledged failing to act aggressively enough to stem the steroids scandal before it thrust the national pastime into crisis, had no immediate comment on Rodriguez's admission. Though last year's Mitchell Report cited 88 players who were involved with performance-enhancing drugs, including 25 who were identified as cheating in 2003, there remain scores of players from the list of 104 whose names may one day be revealed and further embarrass the sport.

Rodriguez indicated he chose to cheat with steroids during a period when drugs were all but unregulated in the game. Though Major League Baseball adopted a policy in 1991 banning steroid use - and it was illegal for anyone to use them without a valid prescription - players were not tested for performance enhancers until 2003 and were not subject to penalties for using them until 2004.

"There were a lot of people doing a lot of things," Rodriguez said. "There was a lot of gray area, too . . . But the point of the matter was that I started experimenting with things that today are not legal or accepted and you can get in a lot of trouble for."

He said he suffered a spinal injury in spring training in 2003 that prompted him to stop using steroids. (Antidoping specialists say the effects of steroids can last in athletes for months after they have ingested them for lengthy periods of time.)

"It was time to grow up, stop being selfish, stop being stupid, and take control of whatever you are ingesting," Rodriguez said he decided after the spring training injury.

The Red Sox played the Rangers 23 times from 2001-03, going 14-9, while Rodriguez batted .262 (22 for 84) with five home runs and 15 RBIs. His biggest blow against them during that period was a walkoff grand slam in the bottom of the 11th off reliever Todd Jones for a 7-3 Texas victory in 2003.

Burkett, who pitched for the Sox in 2002 and '03, allowed seven hits by Rodriguez in 17 at-bats, though never surrendering a home run.

"I guess I was naive," Burkett said. "I thought I was playing at a special time when there were a lot of tremendous players, but it turns out the whole era was scarred by steroids. It's shocking to find out that Alex was part of it."

Rodriguez is about to enter the second season of a 10-year contract with the Yankees that could exceed $300 million. He ranks 12th on the all-time home run list with 553, within striking range of Bonds's 762.

He told ESPN he was unaware he failed a steroid test in 2003 until he was recently informed by Sports Illustrated. But he acknowledged privately worrying that one day he could be exposed as a steroid cheat, and he admitted lying to Katie Couric on CBS's "60 Minutes" in 2007 when he denied ever using steroids or being tempted to use them.

"At the time, I wasn't even being truthful with myself," he said. "How am I going to be truthful with Katie or CBS?"

Amid the tumult created by the report, Rodriguez said, he has come to learn that "the truth will set you free." He said he has not used steroids since he joined the Yankees, and he implored fans to judge him not by "the three years I'm not proud of" but the years in which he played without cheating.

He also suggested the crisis might make him a better person.

"I'm finally beginning to grow up," Rodriguez said. "I'm pretty tired of being selfish and stupid."

Bob Hohler can be reached at hohler@globe.com.