In the wake of this weekend’s SI.com report that claimed he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, Yankees’ third baseman Alex Rodriguez admitted to ESPN.com’s Peter Gammons that the report is in fact true.

His voice shaking at times, Alex Rodriguez met head-on allegations that he tested positive for steroids six years ago, telling ESPN on Monday that he did take performance-enhancing drugs while playing for the Texas Rangers during a three-year period beginning in 2001.

“When I arrived in Texas in 2001, I felt an enormous amount of pressure. I needed to perform, and perform at a high level every day,” Rodriguez told ESPN’s Peter Gammons in an interview in Miami Beach, Fla. “Back then, [baseball] was a different culture. It was very loose. I was young, I was stupid, I was naïve. I wanted to prove to everyone I was worth being one of the greatest players of all time.

“I did take a banned substance. For that, I’m very sorry and deeply regretful.”

Sources who know about the testing results told SI that Rodriguez tested positive for testosterone and Primobolan, an anabolic steroid. In his ESPN interview, Rodriguez said he did not know exactly which substance or substances he had taken. In 2003, there were no penalties for a positive result.
“I am sorry for my Texas years,” the New York Yankees third baseman said. “I apologize to the fans of Texas.”

“The more honest we can all be, the quicker we can get baseball [back] to where it needs to be,” he said.

Rodriguez said he stopped taking substances after injuring himself at spring training in 2003 with the Rangers.

“It wasn’t a real dramatic day. I started experimenting with things that, today, are not legal,” he said, “that today are not accepted … ever since that incident happened, I realized that I don’t need any of it.”

Whether you like him or not, you have to admit Alex Rodriguez has more balls than Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa and all of the other players that took performance-enhancing drugs and lied about it or danced around the topic. He got caught and fessed up and at the very least, we should be satisfied that he didn’t drag this situation out. Any player that knowingly took steroids and were caught should follow A-Rod’s lead because if there is one thing we’re know for in America, it’s forgiving and moving on.

That said, A-Rod better be telling the truth that his Yankee years have be clean. There’s nothing worse than admitting your mistake only to lie again. And one can’t help but wonder if he’s just using the “I was naive” excuse to dodge more bullets. He was 26 in 2001, it’s not like he was a 20-year-old kid who was pressured into taking steroids.