Too bad because he’s actually a good guy.

“I was lying yesterday, but today i am telling the truth”

Something like that.

A-Rod has zero credibility and nothing he says can be taking as truthful.

then we’re losing sight of who his real peer group is in this. Is how A-Rod dealt with this better than what Bonds, Clemens, Giambi, Pettitte, McGwire, et al have done?

I think it is. It’s not to say he completely did the right thing; he didn’t. But with regard to his most appropriate comparison group at this time, he’s ridiculously honest. Giambi was ambiguous as f., Pettitte’s apology was, I think, insulting in its assumption of public trust in him, and Clemens, Bonds, and McGwire’s ongoing issues/suspicions/legal troubles/lack of entry into the HoF have been well-documented.

Or to put it in a way in which I can still be seen as a true hater of the MFYs, A-Rod has at least been the most forthright of a group of high-profile cheaters. I say that realizing that the time period he stated might not be entirely true, and that we don’t know everything about everyone. But he didn’t assume people were going to believe he just took them to “recover from injuries” as Pettitte tried to sell us, and didn’t try to deny everything in the face of insurmountable odds like a great number of the rest.

…I do think this post is mostly idle, unfounded speculation.

“Let’s imagine that A-Rod goes to Texas and decides against using steroids. He’d most likely still be a very good player. The three Most Valueable Player awards, though, probably would not be sitting on his mantle at home. Maybe one, depending on the time period. So without steroids, how good would A-Rod be in comparison to the rest of the MLB? Top 15 I’d think. Top 20 at the worst. Could crack the top 10. Would he be the "poster boy” though? Not at all."

The affects of steroids on baseball performance are very little understood; yes, we can almost certainly say that steroids make one “better” at baseball, particularly at power-hitting, but we have no way of knowing how big this effect usually is, in part because it’s undoubtedly different for different people, in part because we don’t know for any player when they were and weren’t using steroids, and in part because it’s essentially impossible to point to statistics and separate out what is steroid-use and what is luck. So, in other words, I don’t think we can say A-Rod wouldn’t still most likely be the “poster child” for MLB, without relying heavily on conjecture.

MLB: Evidence Orza tipped off A-Rod
For once, Alex Rodriguez cannot be happy that the hits keep coming. Rodriguez told ESPN on Monday that the time of his steroid use from 2001-03 was “pretty accurate;” however, a report in this week’s Sports Illustrated suggests that a top baseball official was concerned that the superstar third baseman may have still been using performance-enhancers as a Yankee. The report states three players told SI that Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the Major League Baseball Players Association, alerted Rodriguez about an upcoming drug test in early September 2004, at the end of his first season with the Yankees. When Rodriguez was first approached by an SI reporter about the positive steroid test in 2003 at a Miami gym on Thursday, A-Rod did not respond when asked if Orza tipped him about the test. Orza was also approached by an SI reporter on Friday in New York City, saying, “I’m not interested in discussing this information with you.” On Monday, he told the New York Times, “It’s not true. Simple as that.” According to the Mitchell Report, Orza violated an agreement with MLB and tipped off a player (not named in the report) to an upcoming, supposedly random, drug test in September 2004. In a statement Saturday, the players association said “there was no improper tipping of players in 2004 about the timing of the drug tests.” One major league player, however, told SI that he was told by Orza in ‘04 that he would be tested on Sept. 24, "so make sure there’s nothing in your system."

New York Post

OK, so he admitted using steroids and said that he hasn’t touched them since.

So? Does not taking them since extract all the steroids? Is it like Popeye’s spinach where after a while it just wears off?

I don’t get this at all. Ever since the steroids “scandal” has been brought to the surface, I’ve thought that it was like this: You take one dose and then get hoked on them. Or do players keep taking them because they need to? I realize that it’s probably just like a workout. You don’t just work out once in your life and are automatically strong, you have to have a routine. But is that the same for steroids? Somebody help me out here.

At least Arod has a sense of humor about this.