The highest paid player is the latest in a long list of baseball elites to be jabbed with steroids allegations.

This past weekend, Sports Illustrated broke the story that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for two anabolic steroids in 2003, the same year he won his third straight league home run title (with 47) and the first of his three MVP awards.

Rodriguez's name appears on a list of 104 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in Major League Baseball's '03 survey testing, SI's sources say. As part of a joint agreement with the MLB Players Association, the testing was conducted to determine if it was necessary to impose mandatory random drug testing across the major leagues in 2004.

Though MLB's drug policy has expressly prohibited the use of steroids without a valid prescription since 1991, there were no penalties for a positive test in 2003. The results of that year's survey testing of 1,198 players were meant to be anonymous under the agreement between the commissioner's office and the players association. Because more than 5% of big leaguers had tested positive in 2003, baseball instituted a mandatory random-testing program, with penalties, in '04.

According to the 2007 Mitchell Report on steroid use in baseball, Gene Orza, the chief operating officer of the players' union, violated an agreement with MLB by tipping off several players in 2004 about upcoming, supposedly unannounced drug tests.

Rodriguez has declined to respond on the allegations. He finished the 2003 season by winning his third straight league home run title (with 47) and the first of his three MVP awards.

Anabolic steroids are powerful man-made versions of testosterone, a male sex hormone. Steroids are prescribed by doctors to help with anemia or for men who don't produce enough testosterone naturally. However, they are also used illegally by body builders and other athletes looking for an edge over their competition.

Steroids may cause men to develop breasts, have withered testicles, become infertile and lose their hair. For women, steroids can cause irreversible masculine traits such as reduced breast size, extra body hair and a deeper voice.