Steve Buckley of The Boston Herald thinks that fans will just have to deal with the fact that some of these players may not have known what substances they were actually taking in the past. Since the players might have been in the dark, the fans will never get answers.

In what continues to be a complicated issue in which facts and innuendo collide, creating an awkward, interpretative truth, it comes down to this: Anybody with an interest in baseball, from fans and media to industry employees and the players themselves, is forced, in the end, to make a judgment call about all this.

It’s a little like viewing an abstract painting: What you see, what you feel, may be far different from what the person standing next to you is seeing, feeling.

And so it is with David Ortiz.

But perhaps some Yankees – and some of Big Papi’s teammates – viewed the entire scene from afar, wondering if their name will be the next released.

It’s the world in which the players now live.

It’s the world in which anyone who follows baseball now lives.

I hate all this pussyfooting. If a player took a supplement that “may or may not have contained steroids,” I view the issue in the same light as just doing the real drugs. It’s like finding a paper bag full of money hidden in a bush. You know that money is there under shaky circumstances, but you might take it anyway and walk away with an unexpected payday. Still, it’s not kosher. These players knew they were getting into some risky business when they walked into these “stores” or “doctor’s offices” and are willing to feign ignorance.

Find a picture of David Ortiz from the height of his career. Now look at Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Alex Rodriguez from theirs. Now go find a photo of Hank Aaron from any point of his career. Case closed.

If guys like David Ortiz really cared about “keeping it clean,” they would have made sure the substance didn’t contain a steroid. Whatever he was taking, it allowed him to put up bloated numbers that he’ll never again be able to replicate. To me, that’s evidence enough. I hope I’m proven wrong. Then again, like most real baseball fans, I take the last 15 years of the game with a grain of salt.

Hank Aaron never hit over 50 home runs in a season. However, he did hit 755 in his career, but none of them went over 500 ft. into impossible territory. I don’t think too much about the suspicion surrounding Ortiz because I already know the answer. None of those guys were for real.

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.

According to former Boston infielder Lou Merloni, the Red Sox taught players how to use steroids safely.

“I’m in spring training, and I got an 8:30-9:00 meeting in the morning,” said Merloni, who was in the Red Sox minor-league system from 1996-97 and played in the big leagues with them from 1998-2002.

“And I walk into that office, and this happened while I was with the Boston Red Sox before this last regime, I’m sitting in the meeting. There’s a doctor up there and he’s talking about steroids, and everyone was like ‘Here we go, we’re gonna sit here and get the whole thing — they’re bad for you.’ No. He spins it and says ‘You know what, if you take steroids and sit on the couch all winter long, you can actually get stronger than someone who works out clean, if you’re going to take steroids, one cycle won’t hurt you, abusing steroids it will.’ He sat there for one hour and told us how to properly use steroids while I’m with the Boston Red Sox, sitting there with the rest of the organization, and after this I said ‘What the heck was that?’ And everybody on the team was like ‘What was that?’ And the response we got was ‘Well, we know guys are taking it, so we want to make sure they’re taking it the right way’… Where did that come from? That didn’t come from the Players Association.”

Merloni said he couldn’t remember the name of the doctor or what year the meeting took place. Boston’s general manager at the time, Dan Duquette, adamantly denied the accusations to Boston.com.

“It’s ridiculous. It’s totally unfounded,” Duquette said. “Who was the doctor? Tell me who the doctor is? If there was such a doctor he wasn’t in the employ of the Red Sox. We brought in doctors to educate the players on the major-league drug policy at the time at the recommendation of Major League Baseball. This is so ridiculous I hate to even respond to it.”

Merloni couldn’t even remember the year that the meeting took place (you’d think he could pinpoint when a meeting like that would take place), so it’s hard to believe what he claims. It’s also a little surprising that a former player would share that kind of information unless it was for some kind of personal gain.

But don’t forget that John Rocker also claimed that a doctor was hired by the MLBPA to instruct A-Rod, Ivan Rodriguez and Rafael Palmeiro on how to properly use steroids after a spring training lecture in 2002.

Granted, Rocker was a freaking nut, but the same was said about Jose Canseco, who looks a little saner these days.