"The only thing I ask from this group today and the American people is to judge me from this day forward. That's all I can ask for."
— Alex Rodriguez, Feb. 17, 2009
It is interesting what is remembered as time pushes events further and further away.
On March 4, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt delivered his first inaugural address. It was 1,880 words, but 1,870 have been mainly lost to time and we recall just 10 that, strangely, neither began nor ended a sentence:
"... the only thing we have to fear is fear itself ..."
Rodriguez's words, obviously, were not as meaningful or
REUTERS
SAY WHAT? Alex Rodriguez said in 2009 he did steroids because he was young and naive. That excuse won't work this time.
poetic. He was not trying to inspire a country during the Great Depression, merely attempting to save as much of his reputation as possible when he held a press conference at the Yankees' spring training complex more than four years ago.
His words about judging him from this day forward concluded a give-and-take that lasted 28 minutes, 30 seconds. And they have been invoked quite a lot recently as a tsk-tsk to A-Rod, if indeed he became a serial user of banned substances again as MLB is claiming in its Biogenesis-related suspension of Rodriguez.
But I went back and watched the other 28-plus minutes, the stuff generally lost to time. And, in many ways, Rodriguez damages the credibility of his story today with his own actions and words then.
Just a quick refresher: In December 2007, Rodriguez told Katie Couric on "60 Minutes" that he never had used illegal performance enhancers and was not even tempted to do so. Just more than a year later, Selena Roberts revealed in Sports Illustrated that Rodriguez had failed a test for two anabolic steroids in 2003 in what was then just survey testing to determine the extent of MLB's PED problem.
In a Feb. 9 interview with ESPN, he attacked the credibility of the reporter, among other items claiming Roberts was stalking him. He eventually recanted on that. In that ESPN interview he also admitted the steroid use, but said he didn't know the names of the drugs he was taking. Eight days later, at the big press conference in Tampa, he did. Notice how his story changes with time, new information and the need to spin further.
But the bigger issues that arise from the press conference go beyond admitting taking what he called "boli" — slang for the steroid Primobolan.
Rodriguez had a different army of lawyers and p.r. handlers then — the firm Outside Eyes was offering just the right words in 2009 to explain what A-Rod claimed was just steroid use from 2001-03. The alibi he returns to over and over is being stupid due to youth and immaturity.
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