Steroid suspicion

CLEVELAND -- It's sad what No. 25 has done. Anytime a player gets close to a record or sets one, there's going to be suspicion now. Atlanta's Chipper Jones pointed that out to the New York media Wednesday when he said Alex Rodriguez will endure intense scrutiny if he approaches 800 home runs some day. Chipper was furious at the stories that resulted and berated Mets beat writers Thursday but, frankly, he was right.

For his part, A-Rod even admitted Jones had a point when reporters approached him Friday night prior to the opener of a three-game series with the Indians in Jacobs Field.

"I think It's just the reality of things," said Rodriguez, who continued his monster season with a solo home run to center, his 37th of the year, in the second inning off Cleveland starter Fausto Carmona. "You can't be naive. In the era we're in, with great accomplishments come a lot of questions."

"People are not going to trust us until we get over this," added Yankees manager Joe Torre. "We all have to drop the gloves and work together. I think everybody in the game, players, owners, managers, umpires, want baseball to be on the highest level. Well, we all have to work together to get it there."

The entire three-game series has been sold out for a couple of weeks. Cavaliers star LeBron James is in the house, sitting with his high school teammates and former University of Akron stars Romeo Travis and Dru Joyce. The Yankees are being run by Don Mattingly while Torre sits out a one-game suspension for Tuesday's beanball war in Toronto; Roger Clemens is not here as he 's beginning his five-game ban.

---Mike Harrington

Comments

[Jon Splett]

Scott Boras spoke on the subject and predictably, denied the allegations without actually denying them.

http://sports.aol.com/fanhouse/2007/08/10/boras-wont-say-if-a-rod-has-used-performance-enhancing-drugs/