Chief says A-Rod shamed the game

TAMPA, Florida – Unable to punish Alex Rodriguez for flunking a drug test that was supposed to be anonymous, Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig could only chastise him.

“What Alex did was wrong and he will have to live with the damage he has done to his name and reputation,” the commissioner said Thursday, three days after the Yankees slugger admitted using banned substances from 2001-2003 while playing for the Texas Rangers.

“While Alex deserves credit for publicly confronting the issue, there is no valid excuse for using such substances, and those who use them have shamed the game.”

Rodriguez’s admission followed a Sports Illustrated report that he was on a list of 104 players who tested positive for steroids in 2003, when testing was intended only to determine the extent of steroid use in baseball.

The results were seized by the government in 2004 and remain under seal.

Because it was an anonymous test and because Rodriguez’s confession involved the years before the drug agreement took effect, there is little Selig can do to punish him.

Players and owners didn’t agree to a joint drug program until August 2002, and testing with punishment didn’t start until 2004.

“It is important to remember that these recent revelations relate to pre-program activity,” Selig said. “Under our current drug program, if you are caught using steroids and/or amphetamines, you will be punished. Since 2005, every player who has tested positive for steroids has been suspended for as much as 50 games.”

Yankees manager Joe Girardi, speaking after his first staff meeting of spring training, said he wasn’t sure whether he wanted Rodriguez to address the team. Position players are due to report Tuesday and start workouts the following day.

“If it’s in his heart, yes, I would, but if it’s not, that’s OK, too,” he said.

Girardi said Rodriguez, baseball’s highest-paid player, “has a chance to have a major platform” in speaking out against drugs.

Rodriguez’s admission has overshadowed all the other big events of the Yankees’ offseason: the signings of C.C. Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Mark Teixeira at a cost of $423.5 million, and former manager Joe Torre’s tell-all new book.

Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said that because of Rodriguez’s admission, “I’m not confident about anything, about anybody.” (AP)