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.

Former Cubs infielder Ryne Sandberg recently said on a Chicago radio show that Sammy Sosa shouldn’t be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame after the New York Times reported last week that he tested positive for PEDs in 2003.

Appearing on the “Waddle & Silvy” show on ESPN 1000, Sandberg was asked whether Sosa belongs in the Hall of Fame. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“They use the word ‘integrity’ in describing a Hall of Famer in the logo of the Hall of Fame, and I think there are gonna be quite a few players that are not going to get in,” Sandberg said. “It’s been evident with the sportswriters who vote them in, with what they’ve done with Mark McGwire getting in the 20 percent range.

“We have some other players … like [Rafael] Palmeiro coming up soon, and it’ll be up to the sportswriters to speak loud and clear about that. I don’t see any of those guys getting in.”

“I was around Sammy for about five years before I retired, and there wasn’t anything going on then,” Sandberg said. “I did admire the hard work he put in. He was one of the first guys down to the batting cage, hitting extra. I figured he was working out hard in the offseason to get bigger. It was just happening throughout the game, that even myself was blinded by what was really happening, maybe starting in the ’98 season.

“I think it’s very unfortunate. I think suspicions were there as they are with some other players. Those players are now put in a category of being tainted players with tainted stats. I think it’s obviously something that was going on in the game. Players participated in it and, as the names have come out, I think that they will be punished for that.”

Isn’t it ironic that Sosa and McGwire essentially saved baseball after the ’94 strike with their steroid-invested home run derby, yet they’ll probably both be denied of baseball’s most cherished honor because they cheated to accomplish what they did?

Sandberg didn’t say anything that we weren’t already thinking ourselves. Sosa might have been one of the hardest working players in the game when he played, but he juiced (allegedly) and therefore doesn’t deserve to be inducted into the hall. Sosa wanted to hit a bunch of home runs and inflate his power numbers, so he took PEDs and accomplished what he set out to do. But now he has to pay and part of the punishment is not having his name listed aside Willie Mays, Ernie Banks and Mickey Mantle.

Sorry, but that’s just the way it is. I agree with Sandberg and while baseball didn’t have a steroid policy in place before 2003 and those tests were supposed to be anonymous, the bottom line is that Sosa cheated. We shouldn’t turn a blind eye to that like baseball turned a blind eye to their steroid mess in the first place.