A-Rod Addresses Steroids, A-gain

Pardoning the titular pun, nothing new happened today when Alex Rodriguez met with the media down in Tampa.

The beleaguered slugger sat down, read a prepared statement in front of seemingly every news media outlet on the planet, and then answered questions for about a half an hour.

In a bit of arrogance that seems to represent the entire "we can do whatever we want" attitude that surrounds the steroids cloud over baseball, Rodriguez didn't show up to the presser until around 2:00, about a half hour after he was scheduled to be there.  Why?  Yankee spokesman Jason Zillo said it was because A-Rod was going through his required physical, something each player has to take upon arriving in camp.  Somehow they couldn't have planned for that to be a bit earlier.

As to the meat of what was said, there were some new revelations.  Apparently, he knew what he was taking, a substance known as Boli.  He and his anonymous cousin took the drug, which was available over the counter in the Domincan Republic, twice a month for 6 months for three years.  He continues to insist he didn't know much about it, doesn't know what effect (if any) it had, and that he didn't tell anyone about it despite not thinking he was doing anything wrong.  He denied any use of HGH or amphetamines, though did come clean to using Rip Fuel, a now illegal but once over the counter substance used for energy.

The question that seems to be floating around the SportsCenters and radio shows is, "How much did this apology do?"  Did A-Rod's newest admissions do enough to convince people, or at least get them back on the path to being on his side?

Simply, the answer is no.  He'll never be able to do enough.  It's certainly curious that he didn't know much about this drug, continually injecting it without knowing whether or not it was having an effect.  It's certainly curious that he didn't tell anyone what he was doing, though he didn't think anything was wrong.  It's certainly curious that each time he talks, something new is revealed.

But, when it's all said and done, chewed up and reviewed, analyzed and spit out, there won't be enough that he can do.  He's been urine tested many times since, he's been blood tested (and will be again next week for the WBC), and that won't be enough.  People will some how find a way to crack holes in these proofs.  

Not that you can blame them though.  When someone gets caught in a lie, it's hard to believe them from then out.  Now, Alex Rodriguez is no different than the boy who cried wolf.