Yankees Ban A-Rod's Steroid-Injecting Cousin
Bronx Bombers Bar Yuri Sucart From Team Facilities, Hotels
Feb 26, 2009
Rodriguez, recently outed as a steroid user, has provided varying, convoluted explanations and excuses for his actions which, he said, took place between 2001 and 2003. Although A-Rod refused to name the cousin he said injected him with steroids, media reports later identified the man as Sucart.
Despite the recent fallout and intense media scrutiny, Rodriguez inexplicably drove off with his cousin in the wake of the Yankees' Feb. 25 game against the Toronto Blue Jays in Dunedin, Fla.
A-Rod -- a three time American League Most Valuable Player -- was identified as one of 104 major league ballplayers who tested positive for steroids in 2003. The testing was conducted ostensibly to determine how pervasive the use of performance enhancing drugs was in Major League Baseball. For some inexplicable reason, the Major League Baseball Players' Association failed to destroy the test results despite the fact that the results were supposed to be kept secret.
Rodriguez allegedly tested positive for both an anabolic steroid and testosterone.
Sports Illustrated initially broke the story Feb. 7, but Rodriguez referred all questions to a union official. He later accused SI senior writer Selena Roberts of stalking him, then retracted those accusations after the New York Daily News proved them false. Two days later A-Rod sat down at length with ESPN's Peter Gammons, who conducted a less than sterling interview, failing to pursue many questionable and vague statements offered up by Rodriguez. Gammons, a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame's writers' wing, offered up only softball questions to the embattled slugger. A-Rod even tried to minimize his use of steroids, repeatedly referring to GNC, the health chain.
Eight days after the Gammons interview, A-Rod held a press conference under the auspices of the ball club, with the Yankees desperately trying to maintain damage control. PR flacks also maintained a tight rein on reporters who attended the press conference. Rodriguez altered his story Feb. 17, but did admit that his cousin was the person who injected him with a substance he called, "boli." He also claimed the anabolic steroid was available over-the-counter in the Dominican Republic, where Sucart allegedly purchased it.
In the wake of the press fest, it was learned that "boli," or Primobolan, is not available over-the-counter in the Dominican, but must be procured with a prescription or purchased on the black market. That is but one hole of many in Rodriguez's story.
A-Rod asserted that neither he nor his cousin really knew what they were doing; that he didn't know if the "boli" enhanced his performance, and claimed he was "young and stupid" and in his early twenties. In reality, Rodriguez was in his mid-twenties when he admittedly took the steroids.
Yet, after hitting a two-run homer in Wednesday's exhibition opener, Rodriguez blithely rode off into the sunset with his cousin, Yuri. Yankees owner, George Steinbrenner, was reportedly in attendance at the contest.
