Big Papi’s Big Burden

He isn't the first to make the connection, he won't be the last, but right now he's the highest-profile — and certainly most likable — player to say he got nailed by a test for actual or alleged performance-enhancing substances thanks to supplements he was buying in the Dominican Republic and taking, so he thought, quite legitimately.

That's David Ortiz's story, and Big Papi's sticking to it. And he may not be as far off base as you might otherwise think. The Major League Baseball Players' Association — ushering out Donald Fehr, ushering in Michael Weiner as executive director — and baseball government say some of the names on the infamous and leaking 2003 survey got there despite never having taken steroids.

"I definitely was a little bit careless back in those days when I was buying supplements and vitamins over the counter — legal supplements, legal vitamins over the counter — but I never buy steroids or use steroids. I never thought that buying supplements and vitamins, it was going to hurt anybody's feelings. ... I want to apologize to fans for the distraction, my teammates, our manager. This past week has been a nightmare to me."


— David Ortiz, at a press conference in New York Saturday, before the Red Sox tangled with the Empire Emeritus for the third time that weekend.

Big Papi tested negative on 15 tests subsequent to baseball's penalty program launch in 2004. He told the reporters he'd met with Weiner, then a players' association attorney, in 2004, but wasn't told he'd tested positive for steroids, while Weiner, for his part, said the union can't confirm to the popular Red Sox designated hitter anything beyond his turning up on the list.

The Olde Towne Team is standing by their man, too, easy enough to do considering he isn't anywhere near being the pain in the ass certain others who've worn their silks in the past decade (like the guy who used to bat behind him and now swings for the Los Angeles Dodgers, to name one) have been. Says a team statement: "There are substantial uncertainties and ambiguity surrounding the list of 104 names. David Ortiz is a team leader, and his contributions on the field and in the community have earned him respect and a special place in the hearts of Red Sox Nation."

Weiner isn't saying whether the players association asked courts to approve any probe into who's been leaking the infamous list, but if they get that green light, they'll agree to player requests to tell them what the test results said they used or had in their systems.

Baseball government, which hasn't exactly been as forthright as it could be in tackling the issue — or, while we're on the subject, helping to let facts get in the way of good speculation and condemnation (or am I the only one who thinks an awful lot of people are more interested in cutting ballplayers down to size than in coming to terms with whether actual or alleged performance-enhancing substances do a damn thing tangible beyond inflating your musculature and perhaps your skeleton?) — cautions that the infamous list suggests uncertainties enough that it's a dumb idea to jump to conclusions based on anonymous leaks.

Makes you wonder where they were when the whole mess began in the first place, and a lot longer ago than just the sad Ken Caminiti's confessional or the suspect Jose Canseco's actual or alleged revelations.

And you may rest assured Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News is not even close to the only one willing to give Ortiz and others the benefit of a badly-strained doubt:

David Ortiz said Saturday he never used steroids, that it was vitamins and over-the-counter supplements that turned him into a positive test from baseball's survey testing year, in 2003. Maybe Ortiz is just another caught guy lying about that. But it is just as likely that Ortiz is telling the truth.

The government seized that 2003 survey list of baseball's positive tests as it investigated the BALCO case. Now some of that list comes out in magazines and newspapers. Sunday, Major League Baseball and the players' union confirmed what our I-Team reported in the Daily News the other day, a story saying that not all of those positive tests from '03 were for injectable steroids, that some of them could have involved supplements spiked with a substance called nandrolone, legal at the time. (Emphasis added. — JK)

It sort of matters.

... At least Ortiz was out in the open Sunday the way (Alex Rodriguez) was in the spring, whether you buy his version or not. At least he wasn't some Lawyer Familiar With the (Test) Results hiding in the shadows like a cockroach.

It turns out that the government's definition of what constitutes a positive test is different from baseball's definition, and the union's. Tell me what Ortiz was taking in 2003. Because only telling me his name is telling me half a story.

Tell us, too, whether it really enhances (enhanced) anything more than muscle mass. Tell us, further, what enough of us — who can't resist letting facts interfere with, er, juicy innuendo or with a hunger for beating ballplayers over the heads over beating a path to the deep and real story — can't help wondering, whether just because you inflate your muscle mass it automatically inflates you into the statistical stratosphere.

Sorry, but the preponderance of admitted juicers who didn't hit the statistical stratosphere as a result — and they (including Jason Giambi and Jose Canseco, and you can look it up) outnumber those who did — leaves that question extremely wide open.

Even when it's asked about sluggers who don't have the personalities of acid baths.