A-Rod faces the music

He says cousin injected him on a regular basis

TAMPA - An emotional and nervous Alex Rodriguez offered more detail on his positive steroid test yesterday, saying a cousin, whom he refused to name, helped him acquire an "over-the-counter" substance from the Dominican Republic that he injected about twice a month from 2001-03 after signing his monstrous $252 million, 10-year contract with the Texas Rangers.

Rodriguez admitted in an ESPN interview with Peter Gammons last week that he had used performance-enhancing substances - leading to the positive test in 2003 - but had left some questions unanswered. For one thing, he told Gammons he didn't know what he was injecting, but yesterday he referred to the substance as "boli" - short for Primobolan, a steroid - and said his cousin had recommended it to boost his energy.

Rodriguez, who was about 21 minutes late to his press conference at Steinbrenner Field because he was taking his Yankee physical and undergoing a drug test, sat at a table with New York general manager Brian Cashman and manager Joe Girardi. Off to his left was Don Hooton, president of the Taylor Hooton Foundation, a steroid-awareness program aimed at youngsters for which Rodriguez will become a spokesman.

About 30 of Rodriguez's teammates - including prominent ones such as Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Mariano Rivera, and Jorge Posada (who left before the conclusion of the press conference) - sat in the front row, while others, including newly acquired pitchers A.J. Burnett and CC Sabathia, stood in the back with Yankees principal owner Hank Steinbrenner.

Rodriguez opened by reading a prepared statement, and as he approached the end of it and turned to address his teammates, he began to break down.

"It isn't lost on me the good fortune I received from playing baseball," Rodriguez read. "Like everyone else, I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. The only way I know how to handle them is to learn from them and move forward. One thing I know for sure is that baseball is a lot bigger than Alex Rodriguez. And to my teammates . . . "

At that point, Rodriguez paused for 37 seconds, choked with emotion, then was able to mouth the words "thank you."

Asked how taking the "boli" helped his performace, Rodriguez said, "I'm not sure what the benefit was." He said using was "half physical and half mental," and he picked up his bottled water to draw the analogy that if he believed drinking water would help his performance, it would indeed help. While saying he did feel more energy, Rodriguez was no more specific on the benefit of the steroid: "It was hard to say."

Pressed as to why he kept taking something he wasn't sure was working - he said he wasn't even sure he was administering it properly - he resorted to the "young and foolish" defense.

"I didn't think they were steroids," he said. "That again is part of being young and stupid. It was over the counter, it was pretty basic. It was really amateur hour. It was two guys doing a very amateur and immature thing. We probably didn't even take it right."

Asked later why, if he thought he wasn't taking a steroid, he kept it quiet and didn't ask any trainers or team officials about it, Rodriguez said, "That's a good question. I knew we weren't taking Tic Tacs.

"It goes back to being young and being curious. I realized - thank God that I realized - that I was being silly and irresponsible, and I decided to stop. And I was a young guy."

Hooton, whose 17-year-old son's suicide was linked to steroid use, added credence to Rodriguez's "young and foolish" comments. He said Rodriguez's statements rang true in that throughout America, 85 percent of school-age children know nothing about steroids and have never been taught the dangers of using them.

Hooton said he reached out to Rodriguez after watching the ESPN interview in hopes that Rodriguez could become a huge advocate for steroid education for children and bring in corporate sponsorships to help spread the word.

Asked if Rodriguez appeared sincere to him, Hooton said, "I think we'll find out about his sincerity over time. If he tests positive six months from now, we'll have to cross that bridge, but we feel he's very sincere in helping us spread the message as a spokesman, to make videos that we can distribute to schools. He told us, 'I've got nine years to play in this league and I can make a difference on this issue.' "

Rodriguez said, in retrospect, he wishes he'd gone to college rather than sign a major league contract at age 18 because he believes it would have made him more mature.

"If I had a son, I would definitely recommend going to college and having a chance to grow up," he said.

Asked about the validity of his stats over the three-year period in Texas and the career home run record should he break it, Rodriguez said, "I'm trying to get by the day today. It's been a very difficult couple weeks for my family. And I'm here to take my medicine.

"I'm sure there will be a lot of debates and a lot of question about everything I did in that period."

Rodriguez acknowledged a misunderstanding in attacking SI.com's Selena Roberts, who broke the story of the positive test, for stalking him in pursuit of the story. He said he phoned her to apologize. He also said he phoned CBS news anchor Katie Couric to apologize to her for lying about his steroid use in a 2007 interview, but said he was in denial at the time, and "I thought that since I didn't hear about it for five years, there was a chance that it was OK," he said.

Jeter said he would speak about the Rodriguez press conference today, while Girardi said his star third baseman came off as very believable.

"I thought he told the truth," said Girardi. "I think Alex wants to move forward and get on playing baseball.

"This was a tense, nervous time for him. I'm sure there'll be more tension tomorrow because people will want to watch him on his first day back on the field. I think when he gets on the field, he's going to feel like a baseball player. But I think he put himself out there."

Asked whether others will believe Rodriguez, Girardi said, "I don't think you can tell people to believe him. With a lot of people, you have to earn it back. There's no timetable. That's something that's going to take time. People are going to watch and they're going to watch very carefully."

Cashman said yesterday was the first step of many Rodriguez must take in repairing his image.

"To use an analogy, he's Humpty Dumpty, and it's up to us to put him back together again," said the Yankees GM. "He's rehabbing his image now on one end, but he's also rehabbing how he feels about himself and what he feels about what he's going to go through.

"So maybe we can put him in the same category as a Posada, a Rivera, a [Chien-Ming] Wang - guys coming back from physical issues. Now we have a third baseman going on somewhat of an injured reserve list because of coming back from a controversy that's very public. To survive, it's both mental and physical. It won't be easy.

"This isn't going away any time soon. The first spring training game, you're going to see how the fans react to him. The first game of the season, you're going to measure it. Every time he goes into a new city, there are going to be stories written about the fan reaction to Alex. The story is going to follow him for a long time. So I think this was an important step and a necessary step."

Asked about the incentive clauses in Rodriguez's contract that call for as much as $30 million in bonuses tied to the breaking of the home run record, Cashman said, "It's part of his contract. There's nothing more I can say about that. It's part of his contract."

While Rodriguez was addressing the media in Tampa, the Players Association was distributing memos to players in camps in Florida and Arizona telling them to take caution in answering questions about the 2003 drug-testing program. The memo read in part, "We would also urge you to be careful in responding to any other questions sparked by the media frenzy surrounding these stories. Much of what has been said or written about the MLBPA is wrong, or is so inaccurate and incomplete as to be completely misleading."

Rodriguez's press conference lasted 32 minutes and included 26 questions. It was ended by Yankees public relations director Jason Zillo after Rodriguez said in response to a question about how this has affected him, "The last 15 months have been very, very tough. I've been through a divorce. I've been through tabloids. You name it.

"I miss playing baseball, I miss simply playing baseball. Judge me from this day forward. That's all I can ask for."

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.