Rodriguez apologizes for steroid use

The truth has finally come out.

In an interview with ESPN's Peter Gammons, Alex Rodriguez openly admitted to using steroids during his time with the Texas Rangers.

"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 and I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day," Rodriguez said.

This confirmation came less than two days since Sports Illustrated released a report that Rodriguez had tested positive for steroid use in 2003.

"Back then, baseball was a different culture," Rodriguez said. "It was very loose. I was young. I was stupid. I was naive. And 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 am very sorry and deeply regretful," Rodriguez added.

Following his blog post that I cited in my previous post, Curt Schilling praised Rodriguez for "manning up" and admitting his mistakes.

"Do whatever you want, speculate on whatever you want but the guy ‘manned up’, admitted his mistake, that’s enough for me," Schilling said. "Nothing we can do about it at this point but move on as fans and players."

Well here's my thoughts on that. Rodriguez was in no way "manning up." Come on, Curt. It took the guy six years to admit it. And this was after he publicly denied his use of banned substances. If he was truly "manning up," he would have came out long before now, at his own will. The only reason he came out now and admitted to it is because he got caught.

Who knows how long he had been doing it? He lied before about not taking steroids, so why should we believe that he only took them in Texas? Would he ever have admitted to it if he was not caught?

This is not "manning up" at all. He would have saved his image much more had he just come clean when he had his "wake up call," as he said in his interview with Gammons, rather than waiting until he was caught. He obviously was not that upset about it if he never admitted to it, and even denied it when he was asked on a nationally televised interview.

This whole situation upsets me greatly. As a baseball fan, I am deeply disappointed in Alex Rodriguez, a guy who appeared to be the epitemy of a clean baseball player. I can honestly say that I did not see this coming, and I feel betrayed as a baseball fan.