Alex Rodriguez’s emotional apology yesterday for knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs was another strikeout in the clutch, according to local fans.
Rodriguez was first implicated in a report Saturday by “Sports Illustrated,” which said he tested positive for steroids in 2003, and yesterday the megabucks Yankees slugger admitted for the first time that he used banned substances from 2001-03 while with the Rangers.
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Despite his expressions of regret, sentiment on the street last night was decidedly against A-Rod, already a polarizing figure before he became the latest superstar branded as a steroids cheat.
“The guy’s a loser,” Ben Goebert said outside his Midtown office. “It’s pathetic. I guess that’s what kind of guy he is. Guess we should have known better.”
A-Rod’s willingness to admit his drug use, in contrast to the denials by Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, gained him little sympathy from the public.
“It’s a day late and a dollar short,” Kent Page, an Orioles fan from Germantown, Md., said. “It’s just, ‘I’m sorry I got caught.’ ”
Others were simply disappointed to be confronted with yet another instance of steroids use in the game. A-Rod is already on shaky ground with many of the pinstriped faithful for his lackluster performance in recent postseasons and off-the-field missteps.
“Everybody does all this denying, and there’s no positive,” said Joel Cruz, a Yankees fan from The Bronx. “I don’t forgive him. He hasn’t really done anything for the Yankees anyway.”
Ultimately, A-Rod’s quest to supplant Bonds as a “clean” all-time home run leader, and his potential place as one of the best players ever, may have been irreparably damaged in the eyes of Joe Public.
“He could have been the home run king,” said Steve Chiovaro of Bellmore. “But now it’s not legitimate. Him and Barry Bonds, same thing.”