According to an article by the Boston Globe, Red Sox DH David Ortiz (along with MLB Players Association director Michael Weiner) is expected to address the media over the weekend about testing positive for PEDs in 2003.

“We’re going to, like I said, we’re trying to figure things out and move on,’’ Ortiz said. “I’m not going to keep this in my head my whole career. It’s not like I have 10 years left. It’s the kind of situation that you get frustration.

“I’m gonna let you guys know what I’ve got. Period.’’

If Ortiz thinks he can’t tarnish his image more than he already has, he’s wrong. When he eventually talks to the media, he should be honest and forthright about what he took or at the very least, admit that he did take a banned substance and that he was wrong. If he denies anything or tries to act like he was unaware of what he was taking, then the public is going to crucify him.

Fans aren’t going to forget that he tested positive for PEDs, but they would probably be more willing to forgive him if he admitted that he did take something and threw himself at the mercy of the public. He should take a page out of Andy Pettitte and Jason Giami’s book and just be honest about the entire situation because after all, he’s already been caught.

The Boston Red Sox fired two security staffers last summer after an investigation into steroid use.

Jared Remy, the son of Red Sox television commentator Jerry Remy, and Nicholas Alex Cyr both told the Boston Globe they used steroids, but denied any knowledge of drug use by players.

The Red Sox issued a statement saying they worked with Major League Baseball in investigating the staffers, but said that investigation is confidential. Major League Baseball said its investigation was “thorough and detailed.”

The Globe says state police confiscated a vial of steroids from Cyr’s car just before last year’s All-Star break and Cyr told police he had bought the drug from Remy.

The media might try and spin this, but these two being fired because of steroids doesn’t mean any of the players were involved. For all we know, this was an isolated incident involving to two security guys that the players didn’t even know.

We’ll have to wait to see if more details come out, but I doubt this story picks up much steam.

Following the Red Sox win over the A’s on Thursday, David Ortiz addressed the media about a New York Times report that stated he tested positive for performance-enhancing dugs in 2003, although didn’t say much.

“Today I was informed by a reporter that I was on the 2003 list of MLB players to test positive for performance-enhancing substances. This happened right before our game, and the news blindsided me. I said I had no comment because I wanted to get to the bottom of this.

“I want to talk about this situation and I will as soon as I have more answers. In the meantime I want to let you know how I am approaching this situation. One, I have already contacted the Players Association to confirm if this report is true. I have just been told that the report is true. Based on the way I have lived my life, I am surprised to learn I tested positive. Two, I will find out what I tested positive for. And, three, based on whatever I learn, I will share this information with my club and the public. You know me – I will not hide and I will not make excuses.

“I want to thank my family, the Red Sox, my teammates, and the fans for their patience and support.”

So essentially he’s getting ready for the ol’ “spin-a-roo” routine, where he’ll admit to taking “something,” but didn’t know it was a performance-enhancing drug.

“Somebody at sometime in some juncture under some circumstance might have probably given me something at some point,” Ortiz will say.

Big Papi, do us all a favor and just come clean. Say you messed up, you shouldn’t have done it and you’re ashamed. You’ll still be a cheater, but at least some of us will respect you for coming forward. If you sidestep the situation, you’re no better than Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, Manny and all the other ass clowns that think they can pull the sheets over our eyes.

Related Stories:

- Report: Big Papi, Manny test positive for PEDs in 2003

Reds starter Bronson Arroyo told the Boston Herald that he used both androstenedione before they were banned in 2004, and amphetamines before they were banned in 2006.

“Before 2004, none of us paid any attention to anything we took,” said the Reds starter. “Now they don’t want us to take anything unless it’s approved. But back then, who knows what was in stuff? The FDA wasn’t regulating stuff, not unless it was killing people or people were dying from it.”
“Andro made me feel great, I felt like a monster. I felt like I could jump and hit my head on the basketball rim,” Arroyo said of the substance that became infamous after it was discovered in the locker of slugger Mark McGwire during his historic 1998 home run chase.
Arroyo said he had no idea about what Ortiz and Ramirez were taking, if anything, in 2003. He said he observed teammates then who were obsessive about taking nutritional supplements and others who never had a protein shake. His knowledge of what others did stopped when he left the ballpark.
“Everyone has their own lives, nobody knows what anybody does at night,” said Arroyo. “Nobody knew Ken Caminiti was smoking crack. At the end of the day, we all have our own lives. It’s not a frat house in the big leagues where you go back to the dorm at night and everybody knows what everyone’s doing.”

Wow, honesty in baseball – what a refreshing concept.

This is what baseball needs more of. Arroyo doesn’t seem to be hiding anything and I actually believe him when he says that players weren’t paying attention to what they took. It’s not far-fetched to believe that players would go up to teammates saying, “Hey, I’m talking this stuff called andro, which makes me feel like a freaking bull. You’ve got to try this stuff!” and then those teammates taking the advice to heart and trying it without fully knowing everything about the substance.

One would think that professional athletes would know everything that they’re putting into their bodies. But if something like andro is being passed off as a “supplement” and not a “performance-enhancing drug,” then I’m sure more players used it without reading every last detail on the label.

That said, I’d have to be pretty naïve to believe that all players didn’t know what they were doing to their bodies. Guys like Big Mac and Bonds were juicing because they knew performance-enhancers would allow them to extend their careers and break records. And those guys were on more than andro and amphetamines, or else Arroyo would look like the Jolly Green Giant as well, and not the bean poll he is today.

Either way, I applaud Arroyo coming out and admitting that he was on something. More guys should follow his and Andy Pettitte’s lead and just be truthful about what they took and when.

According to a report by the New York Times, David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003.

Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz, the sluggers who propelled the Boston Red Sox to end an 86-year World Series championship drought and to capture another title three years later, were among the roughly 100 Major League Baseball players to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, according to lawyers with knowledge of the results.

The information about Ramirez and Ortiz emerged through interviews with multiple lawyers and others connected to the pending litigation. The lawyers spoke anonymously because the testing information is under seal by a court order. The lawyers did not identify which drugs were detected.

Unlike Ramirez, who recently served a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy, Ortiz had not previously been linked to performance-enhancing substances.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone who has followed baseball over the past decade. When Manny was suspended for 50 games for testing positive for a woman’s fertility drug often used to mask the use of steroids, you would have had to been naive to think that he wasn’t on something. And considering Big Papi admitted back in February that he works out at the gym of suspected steroids supplier Angel Presinal, nobody should be surprised that his name is on the ’03 list either.

Bud Selig needs to get with the player’s union immediately and discuss releasing the rest of the names on that list. Ramirez, Ortiz, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa have already been outed and baseball should just do itself a favor by releasing the rest of the names. Because guess what? The names will come out, whether it’s one at a time, two at a time, etc.

But the union will never allow it. They’ll continue to believe that this situation will eventually go away and that the fans will someday rejoice and call baseball “America’s Game” again. But we won’t. We know the game was tainted for over a decade and the accomplishments of Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, Ramirez and Ortiz mean very little because they had help. The union, the owners, the players and everyone else in Major League Baseball is fooling themselves if they believe more names aren’t going to come out.

Related Stories:

- Ortiz issues statement about positive ’03 test

PYLE OF LIST put together a creative piece dedicated to baseball movie characters that probably took performance-enhancing drugs in order to be successful on the big screen diamond. Some of the names on this list are startling, yet can we really be surprised that Dottie Henson of the Peaches was probably on the juice?

Kelly Leak (Jakie Earl Hayley) – Bad News Bears
The first name hurts the most of all. Our very own Hall of Famer, a dirty rotten cheat. Although, in hindsight, we really should have seen this one coming. I mean, smoking cigarettes at the field, riding a dirt bike underage, betting girls for dates at air hockey. Clearly this was a player with no regard for anyone’s rules but his own.

Dottie Henson (Geena Davis) – A League of their Own
Dominant hitter for short period of time (one season). A foot taller than all others in the league. Manager asking if she needs a cup (remember, he was in that locker room, he saw what all that testosterone was doing to her). No brainer.

Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) – The Natural
We’ve seen this story before: an aging player suddenly turning in the best performance of his career well past his prime. Sure, being a gunshot victim had a great deal to do with his inactivity but the numbers are a little fishy. It’s highly unlikely that an old, undersized slugger could hit with that kind of power consistently after a lengthy lay-off, even with “Wonderboy” and his God-given ability to mash. Perhaps he was the Grandfather of the Steroid era.

Henry Rowengartner (Thomas Ian Nichols) – Rookie of the Year
You know what, call me paranoid but I’m no longer buying his doctor’s “tendons healed too tight” story any more. A twelve year old who sucks at little league one day, visits the doc and before you know it is closing for the Cubs… yeah, it must be the tendons…

Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) – Major League
Lord knows Ricky Vaughn would do anything to gain an advantage, so steroids certainly wouldn’t be out of the question, particularly in the era in which he played. In many ways, he’s kinda like the lost Giambi brother… and we know what they did to break in to baseball. While most of his initial issues had to do with his vision, I’m sure a few PEDs wouldn’t hurt his vision, velocity or recovery time. Think Eric Gagne without the goatee.

Great list – love the Giambi brother reference to “Wild Thing.”

The only addition I would make to the list is the entire team from “Angels in the Outfield.” Angels helping a team win? Please – every player on that team was as high as a kite and on various forms of drugs. One week they’re the laughing stock of the league and the next they’re flying around the field? Give me a break – I’d love to see the test results from that club.

According to Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune, baseball commissioner Bud Selig is upset that names from the 2003 list of players who tested positive for banned substances are being leaked to the media.

Apparently Selig and others around Major League Baseball believe that a lawyer with the U.S. Attorney’s office (either past or present) ignored a court seal in order to give Sammy Sosa’s name to Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Daily News, who reported yesterday that the slugger was on the ’03 list.

I don’t blame Selig for being peeved that someone is leaking names that were supposed to be kept anonymous. After all, the only reason the player’s union agreed to the ’03 drug testing was because the players who tested positive wouldn’t be punished and because their names would never be released.

That said – give…me…a…break. If Selig wants to be upset with anything, how about he get upset with himself, the owners and the player’s union that allowed us to get to this point. He turned a blind eye to the steroid issue and now he wants to play victim. I guess he has to put on this little front about being mad about the leaks in efforts to settle down the player’s union, but he has nobody to blame but himself for this mess.

What Selig should do is go back on his word to the player’s union and release the rest of the 104 names on that 2003 list before the media does. A-Rod and Sosa’s names have already been released – how much longer until more names are announced? If Selig thinks that the media is going to stop digging, he has another thing coming. He may anger the players and the union by releasing the names, but it’s well past time for people to start taking responsibility for what has happened to the game of baseball.

According to a report by the New York Daily News, Sammy Sosa worked out with Alex Rodriguez’s trainer Angel Presinal, who was banned by MLB for his involvement in selling and distributing performance-enhancing drugs.

“He worked with him in 2001, 2002 and 2003 in the Dominican Republic,” the source said.

Because Sosa is believed to have worked with Presinal in the D.R., where steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs are legal and easy to obtain, and thanks to an artfully crafted statement at the 2005 congressional steroid hearing, it is unclear whether he would be subject to a congressional perjury investigation.

Sosa, according to a report posted on The New York Times Web site yesterday, tested positive in 2003 during survey testing conducted by Major League Baseball and the Players Association to determine whether the sport needed to implement a permanent drug program. Two years later, Sosa, accompanied by a translator and a lawyer, appeared on a panel before the House Committee on Government Reform with Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Curt Schilling and Rafael Palmeiro and said he had “never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs.”

“I have never injected myself or had anyone inject me with anything,” Sosa said during the 11-hour, March 17, 2005, hearing. “I’ve not broken the laws of the United States or the laws of the Dominican Republic.”

That sneaky bitch – Sosa said exactly the right thing not to get him into trouble. If he took steroids in the Dominican Republic and they’re legal there, then technically he didn’t break any laws in the United States or the D.R. as he said. And not all steroids are injected, so he could be bending the truth when he said he’s never had anything injected into himself or had anyone else inject him.

If writers elect this chump into the Hall of Fame then baseball as we know it should cease to exists.

According to a report by the New York Times, Sammy Sosa is one of the baseball players who tested positive for a banned substance in 2003.

In some respects, this is hardly shocking news seeing as how many people already suspected that Sosa took banned substances during his playing career. But nothing had ever been confirmed until now.

What’s interesting is that earlier this month Sosa announced that he planned on retiring from baseball and that he would “calmly wait” for his “induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame.” Looks like you’ll be waiting awhile for that, chief.

Either way, Sosa has bigger issues on his hands than whether or not he’ll be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. If this report is true and he did test positive for a banned substance, that means he lied under oath before Congress at a public hearing in 2005. He claimed that he had never taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs, but the tests done in 2003 could prove otherwise.

Granted, there was no steroid policy in place in 2003, so just like Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez, Sosa technically didn’t break any MLB rules. But for a league desperately trying to clean up its image, this is yet another chink in the armor for MLB.

There’s still a list out there of 104 names of players that tested positive for banned substances. The test results from 2003 were to remain anonymous and therefore MLB won’t release the names, but it should. At risk of pissing off the player’s union, baseball should just release the names, take it’s medicine and then attempt to move on. Why not? What’s the difference if Sports Illustrated or the New York Times reports whose names are on the list or MLB does it themselves?

As long as there are still 100-plus names out there of players who tested positive, then this steroid issue will forever remain the elephant in the room.

A central Florida man who was charged Tuesday with several counts of possession of illegal steroids and firearms is claiming that he has sold performance-enhancing drugs to Washington Nationals and Capitals players.

Richard Thomas boasted about selling steroids to professional baseball, hockey and football players, saying, “You name the sport, and I’ve sold steroids to athletes who play it,” the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said.

Authorities said Thomas didn’t name specific players, and they have no evidence he sold to members of those teams.

Investigators who searched Thomas’ house in Lakeland on Tuesday recovered thousands of anabolic steroid pills, injectable liquids and syringes with an estimated wholesale value of $100,000, said Carrie Eleazer, a spokeswoman with the sheriff’s office. They also found several weapons, including loaded semiautomatic handguns.

Capitals players passed three rounds of drug tests during each of the past two seasons, and neither the team nor officials from the National Hockey League had reason to believe Thomas’s claims, the league and the team said in a joint release Wednesday.

A spokesman for Major League Baseball, which also randomly tests for steroids, said the organization is looking into the matter. A message seeking comment wasn’t immediately returned by the Nationals.

Thomas told detectives he imported steroids from all around the world, including Iran, Pakistan, Slovakia, Russia, China, Turkey, Spain, Mexico and Germany. The sheriff’s office said both Thomas and his wife were semiprofessional body builders, and that he claimed to be the largest steroids dealer in central Florida.

“He was very boastful,” Eleazer said.

Well this certainly sounds like a fine, upstanding and trustworthy individual. There’s no way he could have made all of this up just to get his name in the paper and possibly be a part of the massive drug scandal that continues to affect professional sports now could he?

Maybe he did sell to Nats and Caps players, but as the article notes, there’s no evidence at this point that proves that he did and until there is, he’s just a poser looking for his name in the headlines. Well he won’t fool me………..crap, I’m writing about him aren’t I?