So, A-Rod’s coming clean…. sort of.  He was outed, and so he admitted using steroids.  Commendable, I guess.  Sort of.  Maybe.  Here’s the part that screams I AM STILL LYING to me (from SI.com):

Rodriguez says a cousin, whom he would not identify, first introduced him to a substance he referred to as “Boli” that could be purchased in the Dominican Republic and brought to the United States.

“It was his understanding it would give me a dramatic energy boost and was otherwise harmless,” Rodriguez said in a prepared statement before the question and answer portion of his press conference. “My cousin and I, one more ignorant than the other, decided it was a good idea to start taking it. We consulted no one and it was pretty evident that we didn’t know what we were doing. We did everything we could to keep it between us. I stopped taking it in 2003 and haven’t taken it since.”

If you read into the comment, this is A-Rod using the Bonds Defense – I used steroids, but I didn’t knowingly use them.  If A-Rod’s guilty of anything, he contends, it’s being naive and ignorant.

Sorry.  Not buying it.

When Bonds used the “I didn’t know what it was” defense, everyone jumped on him, supposedly because finely-tuned, high-paid athletes know exactly what they’re putting into their bodies.  I tend to think exactly the opposite is true.  The average person doesn’t know half of the chemicals they ingest on a daily basis, and finely-tuned, high-paid athletes don’t either — because they pay someone else to know.  They have nutritionists and personal trainers who define their fitness regimen and their diet.  So to me, it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility (aside from all of the overwhelming supporting evidence) that Bonds could have been ignorant to what he was taking, because the stuff he was being given came from someone in a position of authority.

A-Rod’s source was his cousin.  Think about that.  If a personal trainer, not just a guy you hired at a gym, but a guy you know well enough that he’d do jail time for you, gives you a substance and tells you that it’s safe, legal, and effective, you’d accept that at face value and take the substance.  If your cousin gave you the same thing… don’t you think you’d do some research?  I mean, unless he’s a personal trainer and the kind of guy who would do jail time for you.  Maybe he is.  I don’t know A-Rod’s cousin.  But I doubt he’s an expert on fitness and nutrition, and this it invalidates the excuse of not knowing.