While Alex Rodriguez’s admission to steroid use was a giant step forward for the sport of baseball, I was left with too many unanswered questions when everything was said and done.

I could easily say this was because A-Rod was telling the 100 percent truth but I also believe his agent Scott Boras was the mastermind behind this glorified PR stunt.

Everything about this interview has Boras’ name written all over it. The timing: the Yankees report to Spring Training in the coming weeks, where Rodriguez would face a throng of answer-hungry reporters. Good time to get the hardest questions answered beforehand.

The interviewer: ESPN’s Peter Gammons isn’t known for grilling his subjects like Stephen A. Smith. So who better to question Rodriguez on his use? Then there’s the strategy: Give no more answers than the basics. That means no details as to what, when or who.

Like a puppet, Rodriguez executed the Boras plan perfect. But I can’t help but put some blame on Gammons. While he admitted to being caught off guard, he failed to question or dig deeper into many of A-Rod’s answers.

Those answers included no admittance to what he used, simply calling it a “loosey-goosey era” when nothing was legal or illegal. So when he was asked when he realized what he was doing was illegal, he had no different of an answer.

While I understand nothing was legal or illegal at the time, the substance he reportedly failed the test with, Primobolan, would never even get prescribed by a doctor, according to ESPN. If you’re using that, then you likely know you were using it and know it is illegal.

Possibly the biggest slip-up of A-Rod’s interview was his knowledge of his use and failed test. Gammons asked if Major League Baseball Players Association COO Gene Orza informed him of his positive test in 2003 as was stated in a report. Rodriguez said he talked with Orza in 2004 and was told there was a list and that he might or might not have failed.

He went to say, “That was five years ago. I never heard anything ever since … And in my mind, as I did my interview with CBS last year, I felt I haven’t failed a test … And that was my belief. Whether I wanted to convince myself of that or…”

The report, likely the Mitchell Report, has proven to be pretty true. So odds are Orza told A-Rod. Something Gammons should have caught when Rodriguez answered a question about denying steroid use to CBS.

“At the time, Peter, I wasn’t even being truthful with myself,” Rodriguez said. “How am I going to be truthful with Katie [Couric] or CBS?”

First of all, if he knew he was clean, why would he have to convince himself otherwise? Furthermore, if he never knew of a failed test, how could he say he wasn’t being truthful with himself at the time?

Here’s my take on this: I think A-Rod knew of the positive test via Orza and since the results were supposed to be sealed and Rodriguez was done using by that time; he rode the lie, knowing (or thinking) that the truth would never come out.

Now that it has, it’s time to cover his tracks.

I was disappointed that Gammons was unable to pick up on this, much less question Rodriguez a bit harder. As a fan, I’m moderately satisfied with his admission, but as a journalist, those questions still linger. As does my disappointment with ESPN and Gammons for the overall interview.

While Rodriguez was emotional and what I believe to be truly regretful of what he did, it still doesn’t exempt him from answering the same questions grand juries have been asking Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

Gammons failed in his basic journalistic duty of finding answers to further inform his public. He was another pawn in the Boras plan and allowed himself and ESPN to become the public relations outlet for Rodriguez.

This was the prime time for ESPN to really grill A-Rod and work for answers to who, what and when. Instead they turned it into a televised press release, letting Rodriguez only tell what he wanted us to know.

This may be the last in-depth interview A-Rod gives on using steroids, and if it is, ESPN and Gammons gave him community service for murdering the last hope baseball had.