The New York Yankees captain sat in the first-base dugout after his team's first full-squad workout of the season Wednesday, expressed support for Alex Rodriguez and tried to get a message out that will prevent the public from viewing the entire sport as tainted.

"One thing that is irritating and it really upsets me a lot is when you hear everybody say, 'It was the steroid era. Everybody was doing it.' You know, that's not true. Everybody was not doing it," he said.

With all the focus on A-Rod and his news conference Tuesday, Jeter bristled at those who group all players together.

"I think it sends the wrong message to fans, to baseball fans; I think it sends the wrong message to kids, saying that everybody was doing it, because that's just not the truth," he said. "I understand there's a lot of people who are big-name players that have come out and allegedly done this and done that, but everybody wasn't doing it."

His plea to remember the clean players came after an opening workout in which photographers and cameras tailed behind Rodriguez for two hours at the Yankees' spring training complex. Yankees manager Joe Girardi said A-Rod's talent automatically makes him a focal point.

"It would be hard to say that to Michael Jordan when he walked into the stadium, 'Don't be the center of attention,"' Girardi said.

A-Rod was the last of 60-plus Yankees to take the field, sprinting from the right-field corner just as the first shuffle run began. Some of the 1,600 or so fans gathered under a near-cloudless sky at Steinbrenner Field cheered when they saw No. 13. A few yelled out encouraging words. Not a single boo or insult was heard.

Based on Wednesday's small sample, Yankees fans are as forgiving as Rodriguez's teammates.

"We're here to support him through it," Jeter said. "I don't condone what he did. We don't condone what he did. And Alex doesn't condone what he did. And I think at this point now it's our jobs to try to help him be as comfortable as he can on the field and try to move past this."

Rodriguez reported for spring training on Tuesday and held a 32-minute news conference, his first since Sports Illustrated reported on its Web site Feb. 7 that he was on a list of 104 players who tested positive for steroids during baseball's anonymous 2003 survey. He had admitted to ESPN on Feb. 9 that he used banned substances while playing for Texas from 2001-03, and he expanded on his story during his news conference. He claimed a cousin - whom he would not identify - repeatedly injected him during those years with a mysterious substance from the Dominican Republic called "boli."