According to Sports Illustrated.com, Yankees’ third baseman Alex Rodriguez tested positive for two anabolic steroids when he was a member of the Rangers in 2003.

Rodriguez’s name appears on a list of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball’s ’03 survey testing, SI’s sources say. As part of a joint agreement with the MLB Players Association, the testing was conducted to determine if it was necessary to impose mandatory random drug testing across the major leagues in 2004.

When approached by an SI reporter on Thursday at a gym in Miami, Rodriguez declined to discuss his 2003 test results. “You’ll have to talk to the union,” said Rodriguez, the Yankees’ third baseman since his trade to New York in February 2004. When asked if there was an explanation for his positive test, he said, “I’m not saying anything.”

Though MLB’s drug policy has expressly prohibited the use of steroids without a valid prescription since 1991, there were no penalties for a positive test in 2003. The results of that year’s survey testing of 1,198 players were meant to be anonymous under the agreement between the commissioner’s office and the players association. Rodriguez’s testing information was found, however, after federal agents, armed with search warrants, seized the ’03 test results from Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., of Long Beach, Calif., one of two labs used by MLB in connection with that year’s survey testing. The seizure took place in April 2004 as part of the government’s investigation into 10 major league players linked to the BALCO scandal — though Rodriguez himself has never been connected to BALCO.

Does this news seriously surprise anyone? It’s come to the point now where fans should just assume that most players either are or were on some type of performance-enhancing drug from the mid 90s on.

As the SI article notes, Major League Baseball did not have a penalty for anyone who tested positive for steroids up until 2004 when it began its random testing program. It was simply frowned upon and now there’s nothing that the league or anyone else can do about it in order to punish those players who tested positive before ’04. The league is at fault for A-Rod, Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds because it allowed these players to gain an edge off the field and pollute the game without the threat of consequence.

Did these players make a conscious choice to gain an edge using performance-enhancing drugs? Yes – and they are just as much at fault as MLB is. But it all starts with the league. Bud Selig and all of these players soiled a great game and now we all can’t look at a player after he hits a home run without thinking, “I wonder if he’s on steroids.”

It’s sad.