Delaney: Rice clear on steroids in baseball

Former Boston Red Sox left fielder Jim Rice was upfront about his feelings on steroid use in baseball and how players who used performance-enhancing drugs should be treated by Hall of Fame voters. Rice was in Cooperstown Friday for his orientation tour in advance of his July 26 induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

"If you talked to the Hall of Famers, the Hall of Famers will probably say if you use drugs to cheat, to cheat the fans, to cheat the opposing team and cheat everything else, maybe not."

Rice said he didn't understand why a talented player such as Manny Ramirez would use performance-enhancing drugs. With all of the tools today's player has to be successful that men from Rice's era didn't, Rice was at a loss to explain steroid use.

"Why do you need it?" he asked, sitting in front of the plaques of the Hall of Fame's first class. "The guys here, they never used steroids and they're in the Hall of Fame."

Rice wasn't the only Hall of Famer to question the motives of players using steroids. According to a story on ESPN.com, Cal Ripken, Jr. said at a banquet Thursday in Florida he plans to ask Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez why he took performing-enhancing drugs.

"The steroid era really puts a dark cloud over baseball," Ripken said in the story that ran on the network's web site Friday. "And that dark cloud is hanging and hanging."