I took drugs for an energy boost - A-Rod

TAMPA, Florida: Alex Rodriguez initially believed using performance-enhancing drugs would give him an energy boost, the scandal-scarred New York Yankees slugger said on Tuesday.

Rodriguez, baseball's highest paid player, told a packed news conference of around 200 reporters at the Yankees training facility that he and his cousin began taking the drugs in 2001.

"My cousin would administer it to me but neither of us knew how to use it properly, proving just how ignorant we both were," Rodriguez said, sitting alongside Yankees manager Joe Girardi and general manager Brian Cashman.