Finally….today, February 9^th 2009 somebody uttered the truth for all to hear. I’m talking about A-Rod, otherwise know as Yankee third baseman Alex Rodriguez admitting in a televised interview with ESPN that he used performance-enhancing drugs in 2001-2003

Rodriguez, baseball's highest-paid and perhaps best player, said he stopped experimenting with performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. He has not publicly tested positive since MLB began its penalty phase of steroid testing in 2004.

NOTE: Don’t you always get suspicious when people admit, what appears to be, just enough truth to make them look good without suffering consequences for their wrongdoings.

Rodriguez told ESPN's Peter Gammons that it was "pretty accurate" that his performance-enhancing drug use was limited to 2001-2003, which he spent with the Texas Rangers after signing a 10-year, $252 million contract.

"When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day," Rodriguez said in an interview from his home. "Back then, [baseball] was a different culture. It was very loose. I was young, I was stupid, I was naive. I wanted to prove to everyone I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.

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

Rodriguez came forward two days after Sports Illustrated's report that he testing positive for steroids — Primobolan and testosterone — during the 2003 season. Rodriguez said that Gene Orza of the Major League Players Association informed him in 2004 that he might have tested positive during baseball's anonymous survey, but was unsure.

"I am sorry for my Texas years," the New York Yankees third baseman said. "I apologize to the fans of Texas. It wasn't until then that I thought of (banned) substances of any kind."

Rodriguez, who joined the Yankees for the 2004 season after being traded from Texas, insists that he has been clean since joining the Yankees. He had stopped performance-enhancing drugs after being injured at the Rangers' spring-training camp in 2003.

"I started experimenting with things that, today, are not legal," he said, "that today are not accepted ... ever since that incident happened, I realized that I don't need any of it.

"To be quite honest, I am sure of the (banned) substance I took."

Rodriguez, 33, who won the first of his three AL MVP awards in 2003, is currently 12th on baseball's all-time home run list with 553.

Rodriguez was one of 104 players who tested positive during MLB's anonymous drug tests. The results were supposed to be anonymous under the agreement between the commissioner's office and the players union, determining only whether at least 5% of players were using steroids, triggering MLB's first steroid-testing policy. Yet, the union never destroyed the samples. The testing information was found after federal agents, with search warrants, seized the results in 2004 in connection to the BALCO investigation that snared Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and others.

Now it will be interesting to see if the bone that A-Rod has thrown the public and the powers that be in Major League Baseball satisfies their appetite. Meanwhile, Alex Rodriguez lives on….very comfortable I’m sure!