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.

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

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.

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– Ortiz issues statement about positive ’03 test

According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, Manny Ramirez’s drug test was flagged by MLB for elevated levels of synthetic testosterone, not hCG as was initially believed.

The newspaper reported that no trace of hCG, the banned substance for which the Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder was suspended, was found in his system at the time of the drug test, according to three sources with specific knowledge of the test. But according to one source with knowledge of the test, it was was flagged for having a synthetic testosterone level four times the amount of the average male.

Baseball officials had begun the disciplinary process for the drug test when they obtained Ramirez’s medical records and learned he had a prescription for hCG, which is commonly prescribed for women as a fertility drug and is a banned substance in baseball’s drug program. At that point, Ramirez was suspended for “just cause,” based on the prescription and the fact he had not sought an exemption for it, and Ramirez dropped his appeals and took the suspension, according to the report.

Before the prescription came to light, Ramirez was expected to argue on appeal that the elevated testosterone level was caused by DHEA, according to authorities familiar with MLB’s testing procedure, the Times reported.

The World Anti-Doping Agency considers DHEA a steroid and has banned its use, but it is not a banned substance under baseball’s drug policy. DHEA is produced by the adrenal gland and serves as a precursor to male and female sex hormones.

The Times reported that according to those same authorities, Ramirez’s test would not have been declared a positive if it were known that DHEA had caused the spike in his testosterone-epitestosterone (T-E) ratio.

But one of the three sources with information about the test results said baseball had three “powerful analytic foundations” to say the positive drug test was not caused by DHEA, according to the Times.

I realize this is just a report. Nothing has been confirmed and nothing probably will be confirmed by Manny or MLB. However, this is pretty damning evidence for Ramirez.

Let’s sum this up, shall we?

Manny is told that he will be suspended for a positive PED test. He plans to appeal the suspension on the basis that his positive test was the cause of DHEA, which he knows isn’t on baseball’s banned list. But when he found out that MLB had evidence that the positive drug test was not caused by DHEA, he backed down.

Furthermore, he had elevated testosterone levels four times the amount of the average male. Four…times. And oh-by-the-way, he also had a prescription filled out for hCG, which is a drug known to help restore testosterone levels for those coming off steroid cycles.

This guy was (allegedly) juicing! He was (allegedly) on the juice! He (allegedly) got caught with steroids!

Again, this is just a report so we cannot take it as complete truth, especially when there are unnamed sources involved. But this could possibly be the smoking gun that was begging to come out as soon as the suspension was handed down.

According to a report by ESPN.com, Dodgers’ slugger Manny Ramirez had synthetic testosterone in his body when he was tested this past spring.

Ultimately, Ramirez was brought down by his own private medical records — records that the Major League Baseball Players’ Association turned over on his behalf, as required under the sport’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.

The Ramirez saga, as described by three sources with direct knowledge of the case, began to play out in spring training when the 36-year-old outfielder provided a urine sample for testing.
The test came back showing elevated levels of testosterone. Every individual naturally produces testosterone and a substance called epitestosterone, typically at a ratio of 1:1. In Major League Baseball, if the ratio comes in at 4:1 during testing, a player is flagged. In Ramirez’s case, his ratio was between 4:1 and 10:1, according to one source.

Within the records was a prescription written for the drug human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG) — No. 55 on the list of banned performance-enhancing substances in the policy. The drug is mainly used for female fertility issues, but it is best known among male steroid users as a substance that can help kick-start the body’s production of natural testosterone, which is stymied when using synthetic testosterone (aka steroids).

The biggest question left unanswered in all of this is how long Manny was taking PEDs. Did he start in Boston? Did he start last offseason when he and Scott Boras were trying to get him a long-term contract? Barry Bonds started using when his body was falling apart, so Manny could have started using PEDs when he got to L.A., although it’s doubtful. Either way, we can’t come to any conclusions on when he started using – we can only speculate.

But one thing is for sure – the smoking gun will eventually come out. It did with Bonds, Michael Vick, Roger Clemens (well, sort of – if you believe Brian McNamee it came out) and Alex Rodriguez. Eventually some reporter stumbles onto the most damning evidence of them all, and I’m sure Manny’s situation won’t be the exception.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Manny Ramirez recently met with Dodgers’ owner Frank McCourt and general manger Ned Colletti since being suspended for 50-games for testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug and as expected, McCourt ain’t happy.

McCourt is said to be furious with Ramirez and was demanding that the All-Star outfielder call him, according to sources familiar with the situation who weren’t authorized to discuss the matter.

Among McCourt’s other demands is that Ramirez address his teammates. One source said that is “unlikely” to happen today when the Dodgers conclude an 11-game homestand, but “might” take place during the six-game trip that starts Tuesday in Philadelphia. A possibility exists that Ramirez could face the team on the second half of the trip, in his off-season hometown of Miami.

What was clear on Saturday was that the issue of Ramirez’s speaking to his teammates was more important to McCourt than it was to Dodgers Manager Joe Torre.

“I don’t think addressing the team is necessary,” Torre said. “I think it is important that the players get a chance to say something. I don’t think we need anything formal.”

I don’t blame McCourt one bit for being furious about this entire situation. He and Colletti had to do the negotiation dance with Manny and his agent for months before Ramirez finally agreed to a two-year, $45 million contract in March. And for all his trouble, McCourt now has to sit idle as his best hitter and marketing piece miss 50 games because Manny got caught masking steroids tested positive for a PED.

Far be it for me to disagree with anything Joe Torre has to say, but I side with McCourt in that Manny needs to address the team. He needs to look his teammates in the eyes and say, “I screwed up and I need to pay for what I did. But if you’ll have me back, I’ll make it up to you in July when I come back.” I think Manny personally addressing the situation is better than everyone attempting to sweep it under the rug until after the 50-game suspension. He needs to show a little humility and I think his teammates would respect that (even if the rest of us wouldn’t).