Well, this is all very unpleasant, isn’t it? And somewhat predictable, perhaps?
David Ortiz, until this season the ever-grinning, always optimistic President of All Things Good in Red Sox Nation, has been named in an article in the New York Times as having tested positive for performance enhancing drugs (“PEDs”) in 2003, the year before the Sox broke their World Series drought with their first championship since 1918.
And now, less than a day since the news broke, everyone is trying to figure out what it all means.
I’ll be the first to admit that I was born with a Red Sox hat on, and I’m absolutely loyal to my team, but I hope I’m not so partial as to be blind to the bad and to embrace only the good. I write the following as a fan of the team specifically, as a fan of the sport in general, and as a guy wants to see the world in a “glass half-full” kind of way but is constantly reminded that it is, in fact, so often nearly empty altogether. So a few thoughts:
******
I’ve read a few articles/blog entries about how David Ortiz, like others who have tested positive (Manny Ramirez), who have faced damning evidence outside of a court of law (Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa …), or who have admitted to using banned substances and written tell-all books (you-know-who), is no longer considered a candidate for the Hall of Fame. Let’s be honest here - Ortiz was never going to be a serious candidate for the Hall in the first place. The Red Sox Hall of Fame? Absolutely still a candidate, no matter what. All the clutch hits, and there were many, and impressive stats are overshadowed by what he meant to the faithful as a person rather than just a ballplayer, with a personality as big as Fenway itself. The fantastic memories, carrying the team through the mid-part of the decade, the whole “Big Papi” mystique … great stuff, but it meant a lot more to the region than it ever did to the game as a whole. In the end, he only had a handful of great years, and if he’d never been touched by scandal of any degree, he still wouldn’t be a viable Hall of Fame candidate. Five or so great years is far from a qualifier.
*****
This whole ordeal underscores why I usually prefer not to get jerseys or t-shirts with specific player names on them. My exceptions to this rule will generally be either retired players who have retained clean reputations, or oddities/freakshows upon whom we will look back fondly no matter what their career accomplishments add up to. My favorite player growing up was Mike Greenwell, and I have a #39 replica jersey (the boring bluish gray roadie from the late 80s) – he's the clean retiree. The Sox have a left-handed Japanese pitcher who doesn't look at home plate when he throws the ball, thus I have a Hideki Okajima shirt – he's the oddity. As far as the freakshow example goes, I really wish I had a Rich Garces/El Guapo shirt - someday ... someday. I had a million chances to get one and blew it. (And please believe me when I say that I call Garces a “freakshow” in the most loving way possible. That dude was awesome.)
*****
Did the 2004 and 2007 Red Sox, with Ortiz and Ramirez leading the offense, in fact have their championship years tainted by this?
In the short term, possibly, but in the long run I don’t think anyone’s going to care too deeply (except Yankees fans, or maybe some St. Louis Cardinals fans - see below). In 2004, the team overcame the Curse of the Bambino and made the greatest comeback in the history of baseball, if not all of sports. It was the team full of “idiots”, with a caveman in center field, Pedro throwing nasty stuff with a greasy Chia Pet on his head, and Dave Roberts earning a reputation in a span of just a few weeks that will allow him to never have to pay for a meal or a drink in Boston for the rest of his life. 2004 will be remembered for the trade of Nomahh, the arrival of Orlando Cabrera and his 2,332,081 handshakes, and Doug Mientkiewiczwickiemienwickz trying to hold the final pitched ball of the World Series ransom from the team. There was something about a bloody sock, too, if I remember correctly …
These are just a few of the many reasons that 2004 will continue to warm the hearts of the Nation. Those memories will last. The Ortiz thing – ugly as it is – will pass, as soon as the next wave of names comes out, as soon as the next sports scandal steals away everyone’s attention. Or as soon as this year’s World Series ends, when the baseball world can celebrate their new World Champions (unless, of course, that team is the Red Sox … which, I’m not going to lie, would be awesome and downright preferable, thankyouverymuch).
As far as 2007 goes, we’ll remember it for Josh Beckett’s clutch performance against Cleveland in the ALCS. We’ll remember it as the year that Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia showed baseball fans that the Sox don’t have to buy all their stars from the free-agent pool, and that they had a very solid farm system. It was the year that the Red Sox finally had a dominant closer who, quite possibly, had forgotten to take his medications for several months in a row – a guy who will be responsible for a generation of little league pitchers shifting their gaze, all crazy-eyed, off their chin and to home plate before throwing the ball. Mike Lowell, the grizzled veteran throw-in who came over with Beckett, earned chants of “RE-sign LOW-ell, DON’T sign A-Rod!” literally moments after the Series ended. It was the year Jon Lester came back from cancer to earn the title of “ace” starter. Diasuke Matsuzaka showed he was worth the ridiculous investment Theo made in the Japanese star (for the first couple of seasons, at least).
And, no offense to the Rockies, the Sox were clearly the better team throughout.
I wasn't naive enough to think that the team would be left untainted (well, maybe a little ...). There are about 100 names on “the list”, and quick math would indicate that every team could probably expect, on average, to have 3-4 players on it. So the fact that the Sox had names on the list is far from shocking. There may even be more - rumors about Nomar sprung up around the time of his SI cover, for instance. Johnny Damon was mentioned a couple of times. Jason Varitek, too, especially since he spent a significant amount of time recovering from injuries, coming back to play a grueling schedule at a physically demanding position. But until anyone learns otherwise, they're just unfortunate, hopefully misguided rumors.
What does shock and completely disappoint me, though, is who exactly it was that tested positive.
Nobody would have cared if Mark Bellhorn or Curt Leskanic was revealed to have tested positive. Given how strongly Ortiz seemed to take a stance about steroids (going so far as to say that those who test positive should be suspended for a full year rather than just 50 games), and given how upbeat and positive (and un-douchebaggy) he seemed to be, I thought he was clean. I really did.
So now, do I look at him as a cheater? Do I look at him as a liar like Palmeiro, who insisted with a finger-wag to Congress that he never used banned substances? Do I look at him as a guy who made a bad decision six years ago but has since come to his senses and has been clean ever since?
I don’t know. The news is too fresh, and there’s so much of the story left to be told.
Drama queens like the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy have already been quick to say that Ortiz’s "entire Red Sox career is a lie", but anyone who knows his work also knows that he loves being the first to jump headfirst off a bandwagon. Once someone attains a level of celebrity or fame, news outlets write obituaries in advance that may not run for years, just in case. When Michael Jackson died, half of what you read in the paper had been written before we learned the news. I get the feeling that people like Shaughnessy had already written this column a million times in his head. Now he finally gets a chance to commit it to public record.
But still, I want to trust in David Ortiz if for no other reason than he’s David Ortiz. He’s never shown himself to be anything other than what we see on the field – a big, loveable goof who loves his fans and enjoys playing ball. He’s an upbeat guy. He’s incredibly charitable with local foundations. He’s a good egg by all accounts, even if his personal lifestyle choices apparently aren’t quite as impressive. A-Rod has been unlikeable for a long time; Ortiz, not a day. This is where I just can’t shake my personal bias at the moment.
Much like Fox Mulder, I want to believe.
That said, I’m not excusing him based on personality alone. History tends to prove the cliché that where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire. I’m not trying to gloss over the news of the day while waiting for another, worse story about someone else to come along and capture everyone else’s attention.
I just think it’s unfair to completely condemn him so quickly, though, until we get more information.
As of the time I’m sitting at my desk writing this, we don’t know what he tested positive for. He may have taken something defined by Major League Baseball as a “performance enhancer” that was not a steroid. He may have taken something that was not banned by MLB at the time, so he didn’t think it was illegal. Again, that doesn’t make it right or justified, but until we know exactly what happened, we don’t know exactly what happened. Our imaginations, given the recent history of baseball’s fallen heroes, are now primed to fill in details that may not have any actual basis in reality.
What we have is an article that contains information that was supposed to have been destroyed years ago by MLB (but wasn’t) and that was supposed to be under court-ordered seal (but was leaked) and that was provided by anonymous lawyers. Meaning, the whole thing leaves more questions unanswered than not.
In fact, in what seems to me to be an odd turn in the story, Ortiz seemed surprised that his name was on the list in the first place.
From an article on Yahoo Sports:
I don’t know. Which is why I – why we – need more information before passing judgment. If it’s the former, it’ll make it a lot easier to say goodbye when Ortiz’s contract with the Red Sox expires, despite what he’s meant to the team for the past half-decade. If it’s the latter, then who takes the blame? The players’ union? Bud Selig?
In all, it’s disappointing, no matter how you look at it. But I don’t want to banish the guy to the darkest depths of public opinion before the whole story comes out, and I have to believe there’s a LOT more to this story that we just don’t know yet. With lawyers (anonymous and otherwise), the Times, a legion of sportswriters, bloggers, and radio hosts, and everyone else involved, though, we may never actually *get* the whole story, just parts laced with innuendo, which is a shame.
The difference between Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez, before we start drawing parallels too soon, is that A-Rod admitted to using steroids flat out. Before Ortiz is damned as a steroid user, we should keep in mind that we have not, as yet, had such an admission from Ortiz or acknowledgment from MLB. We don’t know what he’s been found to have taken.
Certainly, it would be refreshing if Ortiz held a press conference and just laid everything out without reserve, if in fact he knows more than he’s letting on.
Now, for the Yankees and Cardinals fans (not all of them, but there are some who will be very vocal on the issue) who would argue that the Red Sox championships are tainted and possibly somehow “shouldn’t count”, keep in mind the following:
St. Louis: you guys had Mark McGwire, who WAS a future HoF’er and a figure of near-legend following his pursuit of Roger Maris’ single-season homerun record. Had you won a World Series during his years playing under the arch, would you be so willing to relinquish your championship?
Yankees fans: Keep in mind that during the late 90s and early 00’s, your team was filled with the likes of Andy Petitte (who, to his credit, copped to using steroids, however briefly), Roger Clemens, Chuck Knoblauch, Kevin Brown, and David Justice, who were all publicly named in the Mitchell report. It could very easily be argued that the Yankees championships of the late 90s were tainted, also.
Also, we (the royal Nation ‘we’, not me personally, though I would have had I been there myself) gave Alex Rodriguez an unbelievably rude reception earlier this year when he made his first appearance at Fenway after admitting his PED use earlier this spring. Next time the Sox go to Yankee Stadium, have at it when Ortiz comes up. Fair is fair.
More important than singling out rooters of just those two teams, though, is something for fans of all teams to realize: as much as it sucks to have to admit it, every team is somehow going to be involved in this to some degree. Unless we find out that a team condoned steroid use or directly instructed players or team physicians/trainers to use PEDs (which would literally be the very worst, most unforgiveable news in the history of baseball), everyone seems equally guilty. Nobody is cleaner than anyone else.
The players who used PEDs all made ridiculous amounts of money playing a silly game that kids play because they love it, not because they get paid. The owners also make a ton of dough selling souvenirs and jerseys and bobbleheads. Controversy and scandal will do nothing but help ESPN’s ratings, bring a higher number of calls to sports talk radio, and increase page views for messageboards and blogs.
Given these, I think we can all agree on one thing, if nothing else, no matter our allegiances: the true losers here – as always – are the fans.
David Ortiz, until this season the ever-grinning, always optimistic President of All Things Good in Red Sox Nation, has been named in an article in the New York Times as having tested positive for performance enhancing drugs (“PEDs”) in 2003, the year before the Sox broke their World Series drought with their first championship since 1918.
And now, less than a day since the news broke, everyone is trying to figure out what it all means.
I’ll be the first to admit that I was born with a Red Sox hat on, and I’m absolutely loyal to my team, but I hope I’m not so partial as to be blind to the bad and to embrace only the good. I write the following as a fan of the team specifically, as a fan of the sport in general, and as a guy wants to see the world in a “glass half-full” kind of way but is constantly reminded that it is, in fact, so often nearly empty altogether. So a few thoughts:
******
I’ve read a few articles/blog entries about how David Ortiz, like others who have tested positive (Manny Ramirez), who have faced damning evidence outside of a court of law (Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa …), or who have admitted to using banned substances and written tell-all books (you-know-who), is no longer considered a candidate for the Hall of Fame. Let’s be honest here - Ortiz was never going to be a serious candidate for the Hall in the first place. The Red Sox Hall of Fame? Absolutely still a candidate, no matter what. All the clutch hits, and there were many, and impressive stats are overshadowed by what he meant to the faithful as a person rather than just a ballplayer, with a personality as big as Fenway itself. The fantastic memories, carrying the team through the mid-part of the decade, the whole “Big Papi” mystique … great stuff, but it meant a lot more to the region than it ever did to the game as a whole. In the end, he only had a handful of great years, and if he’d never been touched by scandal of any degree, he still wouldn’t be a viable Hall of Fame candidate. Five or so great years is far from a qualifier.
*****
This whole ordeal underscores why I usually prefer not to get jerseys or t-shirts with specific player names on them. My exceptions to this rule will generally be either retired players who have retained clean reputations, or oddities/freakshows upon whom we will look back fondly no matter what their career accomplishments add up to. My favorite player growing up was Mike Greenwell, and I have a #39 replica jersey (the boring bluish gray roadie from the late 80s) – he's the clean retiree. The Sox have a left-handed Japanese pitcher who doesn't look at home plate when he throws the ball, thus I have a Hideki Okajima shirt – he's the oddity. As far as the freakshow example goes, I really wish I had a Rich Garces/El Guapo shirt - someday ... someday. I had a million chances to get one and blew it. (And please believe me when I say that I call Garces a “freakshow” in the most loving way possible. That dude was awesome.)
*****
Did the 2004 and 2007 Red Sox, with Ortiz and Ramirez leading the offense, in fact have their championship years tainted by this?
In the short term, possibly, but in the long run I don’t think anyone’s going to care too deeply (except Yankees fans, or maybe some St. Louis Cardinals fans - see below). In 2004, the team overcame the Curse of the Bambino and made the greatest comeback in the history of baseball, if not all of sports. It was the team full of “idiots”, with a caveman in center field, Pedro throwing nasty stuff with a greasy Chia Pet on his head, and Dave Roberts earning a reputation in a span of just a few weeks that will allow him to never have to pay for a meal or a drink in Boston for the rest of his life. 2004 will be remembered for the trade of Nomahh, the arrival of Orlando Cabrera and his 2,332,081 handshakes, and Doug Mientkiewiczwickiemienwickz trying to hold the final pitched ball of the World Series ransom from the team. There was something about a bloody sock, too, if I remember correctly …
These are just a few of the many reasons that 2004 will continue to warm the hearts of the Nation. Those memories will last. The Ortiz thing – ugly as it is – will pass, as soon as the next wave of names comes out, as soon as the next sports scandal steals away everyone’s attention. Or as soon as this year’s World Series ends, when the baseball world can celebrate their new World Champions (unless, of course, that team is the Red Sox … which, I’m not going to lie, would be awesome and downright preferable, thankyouverymuch).
As far as 2007 goes, we’ll remember it for Josh Beckett’s clutch performance against Cleveland in the ALCS. We’ll remember it as the year that Jacoby Ellsbury and Dustin Pedroia showed baseball fans that the Sox don’t have to buy all their stars from the free-agent pool, and that they had a very solid farm system. It was the year that the Red Sox finally had a dominant closer who, quite possibly, had forgotten to take his medications for several months in a row – a guy who will be responsible for a generation of little league pitchers shifting their gaze, all crazy-eyed, off their chin and to home plate before throwing the ball. Mike Lowell, the grizzled veteran throw-in who came over with Beckett, earned chants of “RE-sign LOW-ell, DON’T sign A-Rod!” literally moments after the Series ended. It was the year Jon Lester came back from cancer to earn the title of “ace” starter. Diasuke Matsuzaka showed he was worth the ridiculous investment Theo made in the Japanese star (for the first couple of seasons, at least).
And, no offense to the Rockies, the Sox were clearly the better team throughout.
I wasn't naive enough to think that the team would be left untainted (well, maybe a little ...). There are about 100 names on “the list”, and quick math would indicate that every team could probably expect, on average, to have 3-4 players on it. So the fact that the Sox had names on the list is far from shocking. There may even be more - rumors about Nomar sprung up around the time of his SI cover, for instance. Johnny Damon was mentioned a couple of times. Jason Varitek, too, especially since he spent a significant amount of time recovering from injuries, coming back to play a grueling schedule at a physically demanding position. But until anyone learns otherwise, they're just unfortunate, hopefully misguided rumors.
What does shock and completely disappoint me, though, is who exactly it was that tested positive.
Nobody would have cared if Mark Bellhorn or Curt Leskanic was revealed to have tested positive. Given how strongly Ortiz seemed to take a stance about steroids (going so far as to say that those who test positive should be suspended for a full year rather than just 50 games), and given how upbeat and positive (and un-douchebaggy) he seemed to be, I thought he was clean. I really did.
So now, do I look at him as a cheater? Do I look at him as a liar like Palmeiro, who insisted with a finger-wag to Congress that he never used banned substances? Do I look at him as a guy who made a bad decision six years ago but has since come to his senses and has been clean ever since?
I don’t know. The news is too fresh, and there’s so much of the story left to be told.
Drama queens like the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy have already been quick to say that Ortiz’s "entire Red Sox career is a lie", but anyone who knows his work also knows that he loves being the first to jump headfirst off a bandwagon. Once someone attains a level of celebrity or fame, news outlets write obituaries in advance that may not run for years, just in case. When Michael Jackson died, half of what you read in the paper had been written before we learned the news. I get the feeling that people like Shaughnessy had already written this column a million times in his head. Now he finally gets a chance to commit it to public record.
But still, I want to trust in David Ortiz if for no other reason than he’s David Ortiz. He’s never shown himself to be anything other than what we see on the field – a big, loveable goof who loves his fans and enjoys playing ball. He’s an upbeat guy. He’s incredibly charitable with local foundations. He’s a good egg by all accounts, even if his personal lifestyle choices apparently aren’t quite as impressive. A-Rod has been unlikeable for a long time; Ortiz, not a day. This is where I just can’t shake my personal bias at the moment.
Much like Fox Mulder, I want to believe.
That said, I’m not excusing him based on personality alone. History tends to prove the cliché that where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire. I’m not trying to gloss over the news of the day while waiting for another, worse story about someone else to come along and capture everyone else’s attention.
I just think it’s unfair to completely condemn him so quickly, though, until we get more information.
As of the time I’m sitting at my desk writing this, we don’t know what he tested positive for. He may have taken something defined by Major League Baseball as a “performance enhancer” that was not a steroid. He may have taken something that was not banned by MLB at the time, so he didn’t think it was illegal. Again, that doesn’t make it right or justified, but until we know exactly what happened, we don’t know exactly what happened. Our imaginations, given the recent history of baseball’s fallen heroes, are now primed to fill in details that may not have any actual basis in reality.
What we have is an article that contains information that was supposed to have been destroyed years ago by MLB (but wasn’t) and that was supposed to be under court-ordered seal (but was leaked) and that was provided by anonymous lawyers. Meaning, the whole thing leaves more questions unanswered than not.
In fact, in what seems to me to be an odd turn in the story, Ortiz seemed surprised that his name was on the list in the first place.
From an article on Yahoo Sports:
"I’ve just been told that the report is true,” Ortiz said in a statement after contacting the union. “Based on the way I lived my life I’m surprised to learn I tested positive.”Has he been telling everyone that he thinks players who test positive should be suspended for a year because he’s a hypocrite, or because he legitimately he thought he was playing clean? And if he tested positive, was he seriously never told of the result? Really?
I don’t know. Which is why I – why we – need more information before passing judgment. If it’s the former, it’ll make it a lot easier to say goodbye when Ortiz’s contract with the Red Sox expires, despite what he’s meant to the team for the past half-decade. If it’s the latter, then who takes the blame? The players’ union? Bud Selig?
In all, it’s disappointing, no matter how you look at it. But I don’t want to banish the guy to the darkest depths of public opinion before the whole story comes out, and I have to believe there’s a LOT more to this story that we just don’t know yet. With lawyers (anonymous and otherwise), the Times, a legion of sportswriters, bloggers, and radio hosts, and everyone else involved, though, we may never actually *get* the whole story, just parts laced with innuendo, which is a shame.
The difference between Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez, before we start drawing parallels too soon, is that A-Rod admitted to using steroids flat out. Before Ortiz is damned as a steroid user, we should keep in mind that we have not, as yet, had such an admission from Ortiz or acknowledgment from MLB. We don’t know what he’s been found to have taken.
Certainly, it would be refreshing if Ortiz held a press conference and just laid everything out without reserve, if in fact he knows more than he’s letting on.
Now, for the Yankees and Cardinals fans (not all of them, but there are some who will be very vocal on the issue) who would argue that the Red Sox championships are tainted and possibly somehow “shouldn’t count”, keep in mind the following:
St. Louis: you guys had Mark McGwire, who WAS a future HoF’er and a figure of near-legend following his pursuit of Roger Maris’ single-season homerun record. Had you won a World Series during his years playing under the arch, would you be so willing to relinquish your championship?
Yankees fans: Keep in mind that during the late 90s and early 00’s, your team was filled with the likes of Andy Petitte (who, to his credit, copped to using steroids, however briefly), Roger Clemens, Chuck Knoblauch, Kevin Brown, and David Justice, who were all publicly named in the Mitchell report. It could very easily be argued that the Yankees championships of the late 90s were tainted, also.
Also, we (the royal Nation ‘we’, not me personally, though I would have had I been there myself) gave Alex Rodriguez an unbelievably rude reception earlier this year when he made his first appearance at Fenway after admitting his PED use earlier this spring. Next time the Sox go to Yankee Stadium, have at it when Ortiz comes up. Fair is fair.
More important than singling out rooters of just those two teams, though, is something for fans of all teams to realize: as much as it sucks to have to admit it, every team is somehow going to be involved in this to some degree. Unless we find out that a team condoned steroid use or directly instructed players or team physicians/trainers to use PEDs (which would literally be the very worst, most unforgiveable news in the history of baseball), everyone seems equally guilty. Nobody is cleaner than anyone else.
The players who used PEDs all made ridiculous amounts of money playing a silly game that kids play because they love it, not because they get paid. The owners also make a ton of dough selling souvenirs and jerseys and bobbleheads. Controversy and scandal will do nothing but help ESPN’s ratings, bring a higher number of calls to sports talk radio, and increase page views for messageboards and blogs.
Given these, I think we can all agree on one thing, if nothing else, no matter our allegiances: the true losers here – as always – are the fans.
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